Mercedes: We are trying to stay humble

Before the online launch, Valtteri Bottas took the new car for its first laps of Silverstone’s 2.98 km International Circuit with Lewis Hamilton watching before taking over the cockpit in the afternoon.

Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff is always the first to credit the workforce behind the team's superstar drivers and on the occasion of the Mercedes W09 launch, he said, “It is always a very exciting time because what has been designed is coming together and coming alive. It’s never going completely seamlessly or smoothly when you’re trying to push the boundaries. We’ve had a good winter, I would say, no real drama. But it was a lot of hard work for everyone in the team.”

The team informs that more than 1,000 years of working hours have been dedicated to producing the new car which carries the hopes and dreams of the entire Mercedes family. Since work started on the new car nearly 7,000 drawn parts have been created, over 40,000 components have been through non-destructive testing inspection.

Throwing in this tidbit: In total, 3,150 Saturday morning breakfasts have been served in the team’s on-site restaurant...

“The winter is intense,” revealed technical chief James Allison. “The planners have got thousands of lines of plans to deliver on, the design group have got to deliver several hundred new designs per day in order that they can be made. The test and development group and the team running the dynos have to stand ready as the pieces come in hot from the machines, to assemble them and put them on all the in-house testing kit. This allows us to be reasonably sure that everything is strong enough and has the right shape and will perform reliably.”

Engine chief Andy Cowell added, “We are trying to stay humble and just keep doing the fundamental work we have always done. There is no secret formula to what we do. It is plain, honest engineering work. If there’s an idea of how to reduce friction or improve combustion efficiency, we discuss it in our forum in a very forthright way. The sources of all ideas are human creativity, passion and enthusiasm.”

The first shakedown run was watched not just by the team members at the circuit, in Brackley and Brixworth, but also by colleagues and fans around the globe.

“It’s really amazing to know how many hours have been spent on designing and manufacturing the new car and how much effort people have put into it,” said Valtteri Bottas. “As a driver you feel really special to be able to drive that machine.”

“It’s very humbling to see everything coming together,” agreed Lewis Hamilton. “People have worked so hard on this car, committed for such a long period of time. I’m just keen to get out there and take it to its limits. I’m one of only two people who get to drive it and there’s this proud feeling because I know how much work has gone into getting the car ready.”

However the all new car does have some familiar DNA seen on its predecessor which was affectionately dubbed a “diva” for its occasional lack of predictability, the 2017 Mercedes F1 car was nevertheless the most successful car of the past season.

The aerodynamic regulations remained largely stable for the 2018 season, with the introduction of the Halo and the ban of both monkey seat and high T-wings being the biggest changes. So the team chose to follow a similar design philosophy, aimed at developing the many strengths of the 2017 car and improving its weaker areas.

Wolff explained, “We like some of the character traits from our diva. The W08 was the fastest car on the grid, scoring the highest number of pole positions and winning the most races last year. So we were careful not to lose the car’s many strengths just to overcome the difficulties.”

“Last year’s car was never easy to work with, even at the tracks where we were strong,” added Allison. “We could find our way through the weekend to a competitive outcome, but it was never easy. We hope that we have made some inroads into that and that this year’s car will speak to us as engineers and to the drivers a little more clearly so that it is more obvious what to do to dial it in.”

The W09 stays true to the general design principles of its championship-winning predecessor, retaining the same wheelbase and running slightly increased rake. However, working with a well-understood set of regulations meant the team could push the design to greater extremes in every area.

Allison pointed out, “Across the board, this design is more elegant than last year. Last year’s regulations were brand new and we weren’t quite sure which direction they would take us in. So last year’s car had a certain amount of wiggle room to adapt if we had found that we needed to move around certain aspects of the car. This year, being a little more confident of what we’re aiming for, we’ve been able to commit more fully to certain concepts. So we have the packaging much tighter and have taken things to more of an extreme.”

Significant updates to the new M09 EQ Power+ have been made to meet substantial changes in the Sporting Regulations for the 2018 season. The reduction in the number of power unit components that can be used per driver per season without incurring grid penalties meant that durability had to be extended to withstand the higher distances the hardware now has to run.

Cowell explained, “The amount of change on the power unit for this year is quite considerable and driven by a number of requirements. The biggest challenge we’ve got is lifting our durability limit with the challenge of racing just three engines per driver per championship and two ERS systems. That’s a 40 per cent increase in the distance that the hardware needs to do for this year compared with last year. We focussed on trying to increase the life of the hardware without losing performance.” In addition to the changes coming from the new Sporting Regulations, the team of Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains sought to improve the power unit in other areas as well.

“We also wanted to change the packaging of the power unit for the benefit of overall car performance,” Cowell continued. “We’ve been working very closely with our colleagues in Brackley, trying to understand the best overall integration in the chassis, the transmission and the aerodynamic surfaces. We’ve also been working on combustion efficiency and hardware friction reduction in partnership with Petronas.”