Mercedes MIGHT be heading towards trouble with FIA as F1 technical expert deems their front wings ‘cheeky’ and borderline ‘illegal’

Mercedes have vowed to explore a different way of developing cars after failing to produce competitive challengers in the last two F1 seasons.

Mercedes MIGHT be heading towards trouble with FIA as F1 technical expert deems their front wings ‘cheeky’ and borderline ‘illegal’

Craig Scarborough and Mercedes (via X)

The Mercedes AMG Patronas team is a big name in the world of Formula 1, and that is mostly because of the team’s insane achievements over the turbo-hybrid era. When Lewis Hamilton entered the Brackley outfit in 2014, everyone was sceptical of why he would choose a new seat at Mercedes over continuing at McLaren since he had already won a World Championship with the papaya army. However, Hamilton’s bet turned out to be perfect as, between 2014 and 2021, Mercedes came out to be an invincible force that other F1 teams could never defeat.

By winning eight back-to-back World Constructors’ titles, Mercedes positioned themselves as one of the biggest teams in F1. However, they witnessed a giant fall from grace as soon as some new rules were introduced in 2022 and their cars had to be redesigned to comply with them. This led to several challenges as both their racers complaining of porpoising and it ultimately led to Mercedes getting only one Grand Prix victory in 2022 because of newcomer George Russell.

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2023 was just as uneventful for the German manufacturers as they ended a season with zero Grand Prix victories. But the team is set to witness an all-round change as their Boss Toto Wolff has claimed Mercedes would be taking on a new route for their car development this year. And as they recently unveiled their W15, F1 technical expert Craig Scarborough has aired his opinions about the tricky ‘legal compliance’ of the new car’s front wings.

I’m sure there’ll be some conspiracy theories and bits and pieces with people saying that it’s illegal, but as far as I can see, it’s a cheeky, but permissible way of playing with the front wing.
Craig Scarborough said, as reported by Express Sports UK.

Why is the legality of Mercedes’ new front wings being called into question?

As the new F1 racecars of all the teams for the 2024 season are being unveiled one by one in recent times, the fans have been discussing about the various aspects of each challenger. While their have been rumors that Red Bull‘s latest car has attributes that are strikingly similar to Mercedes, there have also been some talks about Mercedes’ latest car front wings being borderline illegal.

The Mercedes W15 to be driven by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell
The Mercedes W15 to be driven by Lewis Hamilton and George Russell (via Mercedes F1 team)

This is because the front wings can enable Lewis Hamilton and George Russell to prevent rival cars from following them. This way, they would not be helping their opponents by giving them clean air to increase their speed. The method the front wings would use to prevent rival cars from lining up behind the W-15 is known as ‘outwash’. According to the latest F1 rules, the design mandates that have been proposed have been given to prevent outwash in the first place.

Thus, Mercedes would be bringing back a concept that has been outlawed in Formula 1. And this is the reason why there have been discussions about the legal compliance of the latest Silver Arrows challenger in F1 town. It remains to be seen whether the FIA, too, believe that their is something wrong with the W-15 and they end up penalizing Mercedes for it.

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