Mercedes highlight where they expect F1 cars to be visually different

Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott believes that the new Formula 1 cars of all the teams are lileliest to look visually different at the front of the floor.

The 2022 season will bring it with sweeping regulation changes from an aerodynamic point of view. As such, the new cars will look very different from previous years’ ones.

But it isn’t just that; the new regulations don’t leave much room for creative interpretation. This means that, for the most part, the cars will look alike.

“With such a significant aerodynamic change, pretty much all the components underneath the skin of the car need to change,” said Elliott in a video posted by Mercedes on YouTube.

“So all the way from front to back, everything is different. All those new components’ design has been a huge challenge.

“The new car looks completely different to last year’s and that’s just a consequence of the regulations, they’re very much different shape.

“The sort of complexity around the bargeboard area is gone and the differences between the cars are going to be more in the surface shapes.

“As a result, all of this year’s cars will look fairly similar, they will have similar shapes and the differences will all be subtle changes in the aerodynamic shapes and the surfaces that we’ve got, particularly under the car.

“Probably the most visual bit of that will be the way the floor works. The sort of strakes at the leading edge and the shape and camber in the floor’s going to make a big difference. That will completely affect the way the car works.”

Mercedes don’t expect drop in performance

However, one of the things Elliott does not expect to change is performance. The new regulations were brought in mainly to make in-race overtaking easier.

But there were also questions from some as to how this would effect car performance, if it did. Elliott does not foresee much difference in performance.

“It’s just something completely different to what we had last year,” said Elliott. “For me as an aerodynamicist, or with an aerodynamics background, I quite liked the old cars.

“And I’ve not quite got used to these new ones, but they’re just different. The overall performance of the new cars is probably not going to be very different from the old.

“Obviously, the intention of these regulations was to try and improve overtaking. And it’ll be a little bit of time before we can see whether that’s actually happened.

“The cars are a bit heavier, the power unit on E10 fuel is going to perform slightly differently. And the way the aerodynamics are going to work, and the set-up of the car that goes with it will be different as well.

“Until we get the best out of that, until we’ve developed that and through testing and through the first few races, we’re not really going to know.

“But overall, I suspect the performance will be relatively similar to last year.”

The defending constructor’s champions will launch their 2022 car on February 18. Pre-season testing will begin a few days later on February 23.