In the round-up: Toto Wolff has no concerns about the legality of Mercedes’ front wing
In brief
Wolff not concerned by wing legality
After eyebrows were raised by the front wing design of Mercedes’s new W15, team principal Toto Wolff says he has no concerns about its legality.
“I think what’s been put on the car is always following an exchange with the FIA all through the process,” Wolff said.
“It’s no such thing that you have a clever idea and then you bolt it on a test and you think that could or couldn’t be challenged. So that is a long process of dialogue that happens over the winter. So I feel we are in an okay place.
Verstappen eager to help support sim racers
Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen – who regularly competes in iRacing with his Team Redline team mates – says he wants to help provide more opportunities for talented simracers to try and get ingot professional motorsport.“I do believe that there are possibilities for sim drivers to move into real racing,” he said. “That’s also something that I’m working on myself, to make that a possibility for them.
“I do think it will create possibilities to get into real racing. I don’t say maybe all the way to F1 right now, but there’s more than only F1, you know.”
Andretti unveil 2024 liveries
The Andretti team have revealed their liveries for their three IndyCar cars for 2024.
Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood and Marcus Ericsson will race for the team in near-identical but differently coloured designs. Herta will race in yellow and black, Kirkwood in pink and black, while Ericsson has a blue and teal scheme for his first season with the team.
Here they are. Introducing our 2024 Andretti @IndyCar challengers ✨ pic.twitter.com/w5gD6H6mCa
— Andretti INDYCAR & INDY NXT (@AndrettiIndy) February 24, 2024
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
20 years of the Bahrain Grand Prix (F1)
'And guess what? It was really hot! Especially if you ventured out of the air-conditioned press room. In practice on Friday afternoon, and again in qualifying on Saturday, the track temperature peaked at 51 degrees C. The air temp nudged the dials between 32 and 34 degrees – and trust me that was hot enough. It was even harsher if you went out on to the 3.366-mile track, which seemed to fold back on itself rather a lot and get quite sandy and slippery – but was actually pretty good.'
Red Bull make statement in Bahrain, but can they be stopped in 2024? (BBC)
'The margin by which Leclerc beat Verstappen was smaller than the performance offset between the two types of tyre. And comparing times set on the C3s, Verstappen was fastest - and you can bet your house on the fact that he was not running a qualifying-style light fuel load.'
Five things we learned from 2024's pre-season testing (Williams)
'While that is advantageous for our engineers to understand the FW46's characteristics in varying conditions, it also lets us see our 2024 livery under the sun and beneath the stars. New and old partners adorn the updated blue-on-blue colour scheme, and the red-white pinstripe adds an elegant detail to the look. As you may have seen from our testing photo galleries, the FW46 is a classy-looking car, no matter if viewed in sunlight or the night sky and will look sensational at lights out next Saturday.'
Is Jack Doohan deserving of the 2025 F1 seat he aims for? (Formula Scout)
'He is professional, mature and a hard worker. He analyses the situation and then acts in consequence. He is the kind of person who works tirelessly pursuing his goals. Those attributes are highly valued by racing teams in the process of deciding who are the best drivers to fill their seats. In addition, he has already a good sum of F1 car mileage under his belt, having completed private tests in Alpine’s A521 car on a third of the circuits that make up the current F1 calendar.'
LEGO Speed Champions 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car review (Brick Fanatics)
'Those are just a couple of examples, but 76919 2023 McLaren Formula 1 Car does well to hold your attention pretty much throughout the build, which comes together in just under an hour. If you’re looking at the size of the car and the piece count and wondering how it could ever take that long, well, don’t forget that part of it is the stickers – but it’s also the careful and intricate ways in which the LEGO Speed Champions team has fashioned LEGO elements to pull off a model that’s near-indistinguishable from its source material.'
A step-by-step guide on how we painted our 2024 F1 car (Mercedes via YouTube)
'Ever wondered how an F1 livery gets designed? Go behind the scenes with us as we bring the W15 colour scheme to life.'
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
Ayao’s testing wrap 🇧🇭
Our Team Principal recaps the last three days on track as we prepare for the season opener in Bahrain, in just one weeks’ time!#HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/IjB67VtIGl
— MoneyGram Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) February 24, 2024
Then vs now 🤭 pic.twitter.com/nv0myR4Jg0
— Williams Racing (@WilliamsRacing) February 24, 2024
Things I’ve learned today: Lawrence Stroll does not need a wristband at his own party.
— Jenna Fryer (@JennaFryer) February 24, 2024
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
With Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc keen to stress he doesn’t expect the team will win “a lot” in 2024, RH isn’t either…
What is ‘a lot’? Ferrari, since 2014, recorded at most six wins across an entire season even while having cars that looked more competitive than the current one. Add to that poor race operations and other aspects needed to win a race, as long as Red Bull is close to them they aren’t winning much. I would be surprised if they both had similarly paced cars if Ferrari managed to win more than five races. Even worse for them might be that Mercedes is ahead according to James Allison on race trim.
Yeah, I’m not expecting anything from them. If they manage to win many races it’ll be nothing short of remarkable.
RH
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Ivz, Jake and Mike Roach!
cdfemke (@cdfemke)
25th February 2024, 2:08
Things like neem.gg (fia backed) were good initiatives but it seems it doed a silent death. After the initial press releases it hmcarried no commercial or pr revenue for FIA and then it’s just not interesting anymore for them
Deerhunter
25th February 2024, 6:07
Showed that Haas tweet to my girlfriend and yep, we both are in agreement at what a fine man Ayao Komatsu is/has become.
Seeing a race driver matures in real-time is one thing, but it’s also nice seeing an engineer rose through the ranks to lead a team of his own. I still see him as Grosjean’s race engineer at Renault, and he looks almost unrecognizable in that video.
Hopefully, this new gig of his works out
Ajaxn
25th February 2024, 23:28
ABout the Mercedes wing. It will take the other team no time at all to implement the same front wing features and then it will be no advantage at all.
grat
26th February 2024, 1:26
Not really– They’ll have to change the flow of the front half of the car to take advantage of it. Any team that just bolts that wing on their car will have totally different airflow around the front suspension, the intakes, the sidepods– it’s a very different way of shaping the flow of air from the front wing into the sidepods and under the floor, and you can’t just change that one section and expect to not totally disrupt the aero for the rest of the car.
Having said that, if Mercedes wins any of the first five races, you’re going to hear the other teams scream that the wing is unfair, a violation of the spirit of the rules, and more importantly, unsafe– because supposedly, in-season rules changes can only be made arbitrarily under safety grounds.
NoName (@noname)
26th February 2024, 9:00
@grat Well said to that RBR/Max fan Sir.
Red Bull will be the first to complain about it.
Leeroy
26th February 2024, 12:09
It may not even be the best solution. Mercedes have had 2 years of “bad design choices”. This could be another. The lap times from testing didnt show any crazy performance.
grat
26th February 2024, 14:15
Most of those bad choices were based on the suspension. Some of those choices required redesigning the gearbox and the chassis, two very expensive parts of the car to redesign. Mercedes would have been far better off doing some major redesign work on the W14, allowing them to spend more money on making the W15 faster.
Instead, they waited until this year to make the W15 more stable, and now they have to scrounge for resources to make it faster.
What the cost cap has really done is forced all the teams to compromise on their design choices at every stage, and makes it damned difficult for anyone who’s behind to catch up– so really, if your team name isn’t Red Bull, the cost cap isn’t helping you.
I know spending half a billion a year wasn’t really sustainable, but I think the cost cap overcorrected– and might have ignored that global inflation spike.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
26th February 2024, 6:20
Knowing next to nothing about aerodynamics, I think the point of that wing shape is to direct more air underneath the car, especially when going around corners or when there’s a cross wind. As I consider the new Red Bull shape, which the media say is Adrian Newey’s interpretation of the Mercedes shape from a while back, then I’m expecting to see Adrian’s interpretation of this front wing later this year.
RH
26th February 2024, 11:09
I don’t think it was ever a question of legality for Mercedes here. Of course they found a clever trick and are likely working on reproducing a powerful vortex that’ll give more downforce. It’s more what effect it’ll have on these cars with respect to following. The whole reason F1 moved to ground effect aero and simplified front wings, bargeboards and over the floor tricks is to reduce outwash which makes the car behind lose downforce. I think these regulations have been quite successful at achieving these goals so far. At least except for a few races in 2023.
I hope Merc get to enjoy their innovation however and that racing doesn’t get affected by this.