Team Mercedes are all set to work with new upgrades in the British Grand Prix, and finally, they are here. After the Monaco upgrades showed positive improvements, the former champions found a way to improve the car. There are still certain areas where Mercedes is lagging behind. For instance, the W14 car is really slow around the slow-speed corners. They also need to improve the rear end, which has been troubling them for a while. However, according to the Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, the significant upgrades in Silverstone will have specific solutions for their problems.
In the British Grand Prix, the Brackley team will introduce a new front wing to the car to improve around the slow-speed corners. The front wing will improve the aero balance, which will help the car gain pace around those corners. Only time will tell if the new upgrades will help them beat their rivals Red Bull in the British Grand Prix or the upcoming races. Recently, the engineers back in the Brackley team revealed the first look of the front wings of the W14 car ahead of the British Grand Prix.
Mercedes W14’s New Looks After Upgrades
Albeit, the design of the car still looks pretty much the same, especially around the endplate and semi-detached flap juncture. But the significant change to the car is the setup style of the front wing around the span and the way it connects with the nose. The leading edge of the endplate is now more of a rounded shape. On the contrary, it was a triangular juncture. Hence, the suit and the endplate’s camber adjust with the dive plane. The engineers also repositioned the pod that is the place of the infra-red tire sensors. It is because of the redesign of the endplate. Moreover, the pod will move to another location that offers more performance from the car’s aerodynamic angle. The leading edge of the main plane has a new location in the wing’s outer section.
It will present the element’s underside to the flow that is oncoming. Moreover, it will enhance the contours which were already there after that. Mercedes took inspiration from the design solutions of other teams in the last era of rules. However, in the new era of regulations, the teams are not able to copy the exact solutions totally because of the introduction of the radius rules last year. Moreover, the engineers discarded the main plane’s leading edge with an upward pinch in the element’s section at the center. It is because the team prefers a smoother transition that meets the nose tip after dipping to the centreline. As a result, the engineers reprofiled the flap’s other inboard sections to alter where it interacts with the nose. It will also be visible that the engineers altered the nose’s tip and the bodywork of the vanity panel.
Mercedes Will Finally Use Aero Style Brackets
The change in the two upper flaps and the moveable section’s length of the chord, which is much longer than its predecessor, is the most apparent. The Brackley team has done a great job of providing the necessary curvature around the upper flap’s trailing edge. It allows the right balance between the load and flow distribution.
The Mercedes team introduced a new slot gap separator bracket with a more aero focus in the corner at the upper outboard. But the remaining bracket has the conventional horse-shoe look. It was Mercedes who introduced brackets with aero styles. Albeit, they had never raced them before. But Ferrari employed them on their front wing the whole year. On the other hand, Haas introduced new types of aero style brackets in recent times.
