“I’m not sure we were convinced theywou ld
make a lot of difference,” says Owen, “but equally
we couldn’t say theywou ldn’t, so wegot on with
it. The thing with these rules is that while they
were, perhaps in media terms, pushed through
quite early, the subtleties of those rules took a
long time towork out. Months and months.
We were even having changes in November.
“That made quite a bigdifference on how
much you push the development of certain –
I wouldn’t call them ‘loopholes’, but there were
interpretations of the new front wing rules, and
you had to be cautious to develop those because
of the likelihood of them being closed down.
Some of them were, some of them remained.
“The front brake ducts were also part of thisbig change and it was very difficult toget them
to work. There were lots of questions from all
the teams. It’s quite tricky during times like that
when you’re working to whatyou think the rules
will become, rather than what the rules are. But
it was the same for everyone. We initially worked
on the things we were certain would remain as
they were, then as it became more crystallised
in terms of the final wording we could move our
focus onto the detail.”
In common with several other teams,
Mercedes had to park some of the more
ambitious ideas it had planned for the W10.
While the scope of the changes might seemfairl y
limited, the front wing and associatedfurni ture
dictatesthe aer o ‘map’ of the entire car.Owen says Mercedes’ initial simulations
indicated a loss of 2.5s a lap. Clawing that back
took precedence over trying to find tenths of a
second in small areas all over the car.
This also accounts forthe W10 carrying
over so much from the W09 in terms ofthe
‘hard points’, such as the suspension layout,
axle positions, wheelbase and mechanical
architecture. Theearly test car also represents
an interesting point of departure between the
philosophies Mercedes and Ferrari ultimately
adopted: its relatively flat planes and inward-
curling endplates had long sincebeen refined
out of all recognitionfor the definitive aero kit.
Ferrari’s front wing planes were more steeply
angled – ‘inboard-loaded’ touse F1 parlanceThedefinitiveaerokitseenheredifferedfromthelaunchcar,
andbrakeductswereaalsobigpartofthe2019changes“Mercedeshadto parksomeofthemoreambitiousideasithadplanned
fortheW10.Whilethescopeofthechangesmightseemfairlylimited,
Mercedes’initialsimulationsindicatedalossof2.5salap”
PICTURES:SIMONGALLOWAY;MARKSUTTON64 F1 RACING JANUARY 2020