Black is Back for Mercedes
Mercedes unveiled their new car at a pretty generic event, compared to Ferrari. Don’t get me wrong, this type of bland, almost forced events are usually how cars are presented. It is only for true fans since everyone else does not really watch them.
The teams are the ones spending all that money for an hour or so of streaming. They create anticipation and finally show the car. We see a presenter talk, then interview some people (hopefully the drivers). They talk about how they are ready for the season and all that.
Finally, we get a glimpse at the car. Hopefully it is a real car, and not a generic design with the 2023 livery on it. Thankfully, Mercedes showed the real car with the real livery, if we can call it like that, more on that later.
Barely any livery.
Mercedes is using the black livery again. It was used on the 2021 season in support of social movements that raise awareness and fight racism. It was quite a spectacle to see the black livery with the turquoise and white details.
This year, the reason is more practical than noble. Just like in late capitalism, they are instrumentalizing social causes, making it lose all its purpose and meaning. Mercedes is opting for a black livery so that the carbon fiber does not look odd.
Basically, the whole car is carbon fiber with a strip of matte black paint at the top. This helps to massively reduce the weight of the car. We have seen this tendency in a few teams, especially McLaren and Williams.
Whenever teams want to reduce weight, they strip paint off the car. Liveries are being designed with these huge cuts at the contour of the car, so that large portions of carbon fiber are exposed. Certainly, this reduces a lot of weight.
One thing is purposefully exposing large portions of carbon fiber when designing the livery, another thing is what Mercedes did. It is just plain disgusting. Just the top of the car has a livery, if we can call it that way. Two thirds of cars are carbon fiber.
I don’t want to hear them talk about social justice and fighting racism when their choice was based on performance. Besides, it’s a good way to conceal any aerodynamic structures that might be close to illegality.
Barely any sidepod.
Mercedes had to rework a lot of aspects in the design philosophy. With the aid of the FIA, the porpoise problem seems to be resolved. The car is now raised, and Mercedes does not need to add that tungsten bar at the rear side of the barge board.
When it comes to the side pods, or lack of, this year it seems that they are running something that resembles more a traditional side pod compared to last season. Toto Wolff said that this design will change over the next few races. Let’s see where this goes. I certainly don’t know if zero-pod really passed the crash tests.
Wolff does not blame the zero-pod design for last year’s failures. It seems that they are continuing more or less in this path. The W14 still has the smallest side pods of the grid. They certainly want to follow their own design philosophy and not copy other teams. I suppose pride is strong in the German team based in England.
Slot gap separators
After having them banned at Spain last year. Mercedes reverted to not using slot gap separators for the front wing. The rule stated that these separators could not offer any kind of aerodynamic advantage. Their design had to be merely structural.
The FIA changed the rule after banning Mercedes. For some reason, Ferrari was the only team to have this structure in their front wing for 2023. Mercedes showed the W14 with no slot gap separators. Either they will use the real wing on Bahrein while testing, or they decided not to use them.
I think despite showing us the real carbon fiber car at this event, Mercedes did not show every aerodynamic structure, especially the more visible ones, like in the wings or barge board.
Trust the process
Sir Lewis Hamilton expressed his full trust in his engineers and designers. Despite most of the structural changes being similar to last year, Hamilton trusts the process and hopes to have a competitive car for this season.
A true champion like him is like a caged lion. Racing such a bad car last year must have been really frustrating for him. Hopefully this changes. Hamilton really showed what he is capable of for small glimpses of the season last year. The car was a handful and very inconsistent.
He needs a proper race car and Mercedes failed him last year. Perhaps this season everything changes. Hamilton being competitive is imperative for the F1 season to stay interesting for its duration.
Ferrari still needs to prove themselves, and Red Bull needs a proper rival as well. If all 3 teams sort their issues, we might have the most intense season of F1 in both drivers and manufacturers championship.
Let’s see what the Bahrein test shows. Probably nothing remarkable. Only when the season starts will we see the true pace of each team. Perhaps we need a few races to see what the real performance that each team achieved.
Keep in mind that this is the longest season in the history of Formula 1. 23 races in almost 9 months.
What are your thoughts on the W14 car? Will they be competitive? Let me know in the comments below.
Happy racing.
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