↑ Lewis testing the ‘ zero ’ sidepod W13 at Bahrain in 2022
After a period of domination of the sport from the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era in 2014 , things have been lean for Mercedes in recent times . With pole position in Canada and victory for George Russell last time out , are the team ’ s fortunes changing for the better again ?
RDS
Much was expected from everyone when the new , Covid-delayed ground effect rules for F1 ® were finally introduced for 2022 . It has turned out to be a Red Bull benefit thus far , with Ferrari and McLaren playing a few decent parts . But in the past three races Mercedes finally began to look like a genuine player again , too .
At the end of 2021 , Mercedes were still fastest but Red Bull took the title at the very last . However , by then , Adrian Newey was well into the design of the RB18 , in conjunction with technical director Pierre Wache , chief engineering officer Rob Marshall and chief designer Craig Skinner , and they crafted a real humdinger that only really had genuine competition from Ferrari ’ s F1-75 in 2022 . That car was designed by teams led by head of power-unit area Enrico Gualtieri and head of chassis design Enrico Cardile .
Both teams went for relatively ‘ conventional ’ cars , if one might call them that without causing offence . Mercedes , however , with a technical team led on the engine side by Hywel Thomas – and on the chassis by technical director Mike Elliott , performance director Loïc Serra , chief designer John Owen and aerodynamics director Jarrod Murphy – went radical .
Back in 1978 , having won the World Championship with the beautiful Lotus 79 , Colin Chapman sought to go another step with his team ’ s pioneering work on ground effect . Mercedes likewise attempted to build on the eight consecutive FIA Formula 1 ® Constructors ’ World Championship they had so memorably achieved since 2014 , plus their seven for Drivers .
Instead , like Chapman , they reached too far , and the Mercedes-AMG F1 ® W13 proved to be their ‘ Lotus 80 ’, a car that itself was in the shadow of its illustrious predecessor .
So , what went wrong ? Was it simply that Newey had been around during that first ground-effect era , from 1977 to 1982 ? And that he thus knew what to look out for ? Or did Mercedes miscalculate ?
As with all things technical in F1 ®, the answer was never simple . F1 ® design is a complex subject , undertaken by very clever people . Basically , the key
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