Mercedes innovation 'at the boundary' of F1 rules

The W15 is, in a way, a conventional car. It was expected that there would be much more convention than the previous car, not just because of the sort of similar concept to the Red Bulls of the last two years but also because they have changed many elements on this car.

The weight distribution has been changed, we see the cockpit has been pushed rearwards and there is also a different gearbox case which is more compact, with the adoption of a push-rod layout for the rear suspension.

It is a car that looks more driveable and even if we have seen some spinning of the rear wheel, it was mainly due to a sub-perfect set-up in terms of suspension set-up and in terms of aero balance.

From the aero point of view, we have seen the very striking solution of the top flap on the front wing, which we can consider at the boundaries of the current regulatory texts.

The central section of the last flap has been reduced dramatically to a sort of Gurney flap overlapping the previous flap, it can be disputable whether it is within the spirit of the rules but, since it has been deemed legal so far, we can say it has been clever intuition from the Brackley-based engineers.