Mercedes all set to bring new rear wing for upcoming Australian Grand Prix

It is being reported that the Mercedes F1 team is going to bring a whole new “rear wing” to the fast-approaching Australian Grand Prix of the 2022 F1 season.

The idea behind the new rear wing is to improve the performance of the W13 from what it has been during the first two races of the 2022 F1 season.

During the 2022 F1 season, Mercedes has not gotten off to the kind of start they made a habit of getting off to in the previous seasons of F1, moreover this season the silver-arrows have looked way off the pace of the high flying Red Bull and Ferrari F1 team who both have won a race each so far.

The silver arrows went to Saudi Arabia with the hope of facing less porpoising issues on the Saudi track but the track change did not bring any change in fortunes for the team.

While talking about the issue a Mercedes engineer has said, “We assumed the bouncing would be less in Jeddah because the track is flatter.”

“We were wrong about that. We still don’t fully understand what factors trigger the phenomenon. It’s a constant learning process.”

Mercedes did not have the best of Quali weekends in Saudi Arabia as Lewis Hamilton got knocked out in Q1 whereas his partner Russell finished qualifying in P6 behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

“The differences in the set-up were minimal.” As per the Mercedes engineer, there were not many differences between the two W13s and it was only a matter of nailing the W13’s narrow window.

Mercedes’s high-speed performance is not as per expectations

Porpoising is not the only issue that the Mercedes team is dealing with at the moment, their high-speed performance is also not what the team was expecting ahead of the 2022 F1 season.

Auto Motor and Sport has reported that the Mercedes was about 11 km slower than the Red Bull on the straight in Saudi Arabia and around turns five to nine, they were 15-20 Kms down on the Ferrari.

Mercedes believe their high-speed deficit is not because of the power unit as they believe it only costs “a maximum of one to two tenths in the lap time” but because of the high drag that the Mercedes team has encountered so far in the 2022 season.

Auto Motor and Sport has stated that Mercedes is going to introduce an upgraded rear wing for the upcoming Australian Grand Prix, which will look to make inroads into fixing that issue.

The Mercedes engineer was stressed about the Zero Pod design and the amount of resistance that the W13 has created in the first two races, the engineer said, “Don’t look at the surface of the car and the rear wing flap.”

“That’s misleading. Drag is mainly generated by the rear wing skin blade and the rear underwing. And that’s where we are way up.”

The Mercedes team Principal has in recent days has shied away from the prospect of answering questions regarding the team’s development work and where it could lead them in terms of getting performance out of the W13.

Instead, he said the team would not fall into a “trap” by predicting where they will become in the summer.

“The gap we have you don’t makeup by the next race,” he said.

“We have to work forward and protect the rear and not fall into the trap of making predictions today about where we might be in the summer.”

Mercedes’s back is up against the wall at the moment and if they are to make a challenge for the title in 2022 then they have to get their act together as soon as possible because otherwise, it could spell “doom” for the reigning constructor’s champions by the time we reach the summer break of F1.

Also Read: Lewis Hamilton-Max Verstappen showdown at Abu Dhabi GP nominated for BAFTA