Paddock insiders already have a name for Mercedes’ new front wing innovation — ‘W-duct’.
We have reported that the German marque has already tested the F-duct style concept at the front of its newly-launched W03 car.

The Finnish broadcaster MTV3, describing the system as ‘W-duct’, has provided some detail as to how it works.

When the car is being driven in a straight line, air flows into the tip of the silver car’s nose and is dispersed in a W-like pattern across the length of the front wing.

But when the car is cornering, the air flows more predominantly to one side or the other, improving the balance and handling.

Unlike the driver-operated rear wing F-duct, which was banned for 2011, Mercedes’ system is entirely passive and requires no moving parts, and is therefore legal.

Meanwhile, team boss Ross Brawn on Tuesday defended Mercedes’ strategy of employing numerous technical bosses, including Aldo Costa, Bob Bell and Geoff Willis.

“How it works is a mystery to me,” Red Bull’s Dr Helmut Marko told Die Welt newspaper, “but Mercedes must know what they’re doing.”

Two authoritative sources have admitted they doubt Adrian Newey was telling the whole truth about the air inlet in the ‘step’ nose of Red Bull’s 2012 car.
Designer Newey, the pioneer of the now-banned blown diffuser solutions seen throughout last year’s grid, insisted that the mysterious letterbox-slot gap in the RB8 is simply to cool the drivers with air.

But the aerodynamic expert’s explanation was met with some initial scepticism, amid speculation the monocoque air could also be flowing elsewhere for a performance benefit.

“The drivers are going to get their feet wet when it rains,” a suspicious unnamed engineer smilingly told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

Also unconvinced is Joan Villadelprat, a veteran former formula one engineer who has worked at McLaren, Ferrari, Benetton, Prost and – most recently – heading the operations of the sports car team Epsilon Euskadi.

He wrote in El Pais newspaper: “Personally, I don’t believe Adrian Newey’s explanation that the opening is to refresh the drivers.

“If that’s what they need then Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber must drive half-asleep,” the Spaniard joked.

Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport speculates that the RB8′s inlet directs air underneath the floor, as per Ferrari’s innovative nose-slot of 2008.

 Mercedes’ highly-anticipated 2012 car made its track debut this week during a secret test day at Silverstone.
“Lots of questions about Silverstone and shakedowns,” admitted the Northamptonshire based team on Twitter on Thursday.

Youtube video footage, captured by a trackside observer, showed the ‘step’ nose W03 turning laps at the British grand prix venue, which is located just a 15-minute drive from the German team’s Brackley headquarters.

Mercedes said the test was for “filming” purposes, with Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher’s equally sharing the allowed 100 kilometres of running.

Italy’s Autosprint website said the car appeared “fairly conventional”, despite speculation the late test debut is due to the team keeping an explosive technical innovation close to its chest.

Adrian Newey, Red Bull’s car designer, admitted he and Mercedes’ rivals might have a very close look at the W03 if the rumours about the technical secret are true.

“If it comes out and goes three seconds quicker than anybody else, yes of course,” he is quoted by Reuters.

“Other than that, simply because its later doesn’t mean to say you are going to suddenly show more attention at that than anybody else’s.”

Meanwhile, after the struggling Spanish team’s 2012 car recently failed two mandatory FIA crash tests, HRT will sit out next week’s Barcelona test.

Last week at Jerez, Pedro de la Rosa ran at the wheel of the 2011 car.

When Adrian Newey said a mysterious ‘letterbox slot’-shaped air inlet in the stepped nose of his new RB8 car is for driver cooling, a wave of speculation eased.
But not everyone inside the F1 paddock was entirely happy with that answer.

When the 2012 Red Bull was launched recently, it was apparent the ‘step’ nose design differed from its rivals in the form of a sizeable inlet where the monocoque meets the new mandatory lower nose height.

Some surmised it must be for KERS cooling, or perhaps even an F-duct style channel through to the diffuser.

Amid suggestions Mercedes has come up with an F-duct style channel in its 2012 front wing, Red Bull designer Newey explained that the nose slot is in fact simply to cool the drivers.

“Traditionally the driver cooling slot is at the front of the nose,” explained Newey, “but really for styling as much as anything we moved it to where you now see it to break up the aesthetics of the ramp.”

There are, however, doubts about that explanation, particularly with close-up images showing that the main inlet is actually divided into two channels at the middle.

Indeed, the Telegraph last week quoted Newey as having said the slot is “primarily” for cooling, which suggests that it might have another use.

According to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, “the competition is suspicious”, having already been outsmarted by Newey in past years in the area of flexing wings and blown diffusers.

When asked about Newey’s driver-cooling explanation for the big letterbox slot-style inlet, an unnamed rival engineer smiled: “Then the drivers are going to get their feet wet when it rains.”

Asked last week about the ‘cooling inlet’ amid Jerez’s cold temperatures, Mark Webber reportedly grinned to Autosprint: “The toes are a bit too cold now actually.”

 Renault is a secret to Red Bull’s recent success in formula one, the French carmaker claims.
The common perception, however, is that the energy drink-owned team has dominated the sport in recent years despite Mercedes-Benz actually supplying a more powerful 2.4 litre V8 engine to Red Bull’s rivals.

“The Mercedes engine is indeed about 15 horse power more powerful than ours,” confirmed Renault Sport F1′s Jean-Francois Caubet.

“But in terms of driveability and fuel economy, it is our engine in front. So when it comes to the bottom line, we are a little bit better than Mercedes,” he claimed to Germany’s Sport Bild magazine.

The most crucial factor, Caubet claimed, is the engine’s fuel economy amid the backdrop of the recent ban on in-race refuelling.

“Because our consumption is lower, Red Bull can start the races with 15 to 18 litres less petrol in the tank than the competition,” he said.

“That makes a big difference.”

Another factor is Sebastian Vettel’s driving, he agreed, with the back to back world champion having a “very fuel efficient” style, and being “extremely interested in the data”.

“They are both key factors when the driver wants to use the engine perfectly,” said Caubet.

F1′s ‘blown exhaust’ saga may not be over, according to Lotus team officials.

“For us, it is clear that the exhaust gases may not be used to alter the car’s aerodynamics,” said team boss Eric Boullier.

He is referring to the FIA’s ban on diffuser exhaust blowing, and the fact that major teams including McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull are being highly secretive of their 2012 solutions.

“We may see some strange things at the back of some cars which we will have to discuss, but let’s see,” Boullier said at Jerez ahead of the opening group test.

The problem, team technical boss James Allison explains, is that while the 2012 rules are much clearer, some loopholes may still exist.

“The area in which the exhaust can be located is still relatively large,” he is quoted by Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“Therefore, there are grey areas.

“Our position at the moment is that there is no controversy, but we are watching very closely how far the competition is going and how much the FIA will allow,” added Allison.

 The scene could be set for the most competitive season in F1 history, according to Pirelli’s Paul Hembery.
He is referring to the fact that six world champions – Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher – will be on the Melbourne grid in March.

That is a quarter of the entire 24-car field.

“That is probably the highest level (of quality in F1) ever,” Hembery is quoted as saying by Finland’s Turun Sanomat, “particularly when you take into account that there are a lot of other very talented drivers who haven’t won a title.

“If the level of the cars and the performance levels (of the drivers) are just as high, there will be some astonishingly good races,” added the F1 tyre supplier’s motor sport director.

Hembery was coy, however, when asked specifically about Raikkonen, the returning 2007 champion.

“I have met him twice,” he said. “He is a quiet guy and, anyway, we strive to keep our distance. The drivers turn to us when they need something.”

He did not give anything away about Raikkonen’s first taste of life on Pirelli rubber, after the Finn’s Valencia test this week on demonstration tyres.

“We didn’t monitor it at all, it was Lotus’ thing alone,” he insisted.

“Of course I saw his comments and it will be a big difference for him now compared to what he has known before.

“But Kimi is one of the most extraordinary drivers the sport has seen so I think he will learn quickly.”

Pirelli motorsport boss Paul Hembery is satisfied that his company delivered on the mandate given to his organisation to spice up the sport with creative use of tyre technology and plans to be more aggressive going into 2012.

Hembery told Sky Sports, “We were asked to bring something a bit different to the sport for 2011. We were given the challenge of creating tyres that degraded, tyres that had a high wear rate, so that we could force some pit-stops. We feel that at the end of the season we had delivered very much that.”

“It’s funny because at the start of the season we were being criticised for being maybe too aggressive and at the end for being too conservative. In reality, a lot of that was to do with drivers and the teams getting used to the tyres and modifying the set-up to maximise what we gave them,” reflected the Pirelli director of motorsport.

Looking to this season Hembery said, “Going forward we have to be a little bit more aggressive going into 2012, we’ve changed three of the compounds we used last season, the soft, medium and the hard, and the peak performance between them will actually be a lot closer, which will lead onto improved strategy. That’s the plan anyway. We don’t know of course what the cars will be like; we’ll find that out in a few days time when we start up in Spain with our winter test programme.”

“The cars should have had a bit of a change with the blown diffusers going away and in-corner speed should be lower, but you never know. These guys that design these cars are the best in the world, they come up with some amazing ideas and maybe that’s not going to be true and we find that the cars are very similar to 2011. But our intention of course is to try and replicate what we did, try to make it quite aggressive and do our bit to make the racing quite exciting,” predicts Hembery.
Marbles

One of the early characteristics of the Pirelli tyres was the amount of marbles they generated as they wore down. This was addressed to a certain degree as the season progressed.

Hembery explained, “We did make some changes to make a slight improvement to that. You always get marbles, little bits of hot, molten rubber. What usually happens is that it builds up on the outside of the corners – where you have the rubber wear built-up under braking and it gets thrown off the tyre as you go around the corner.”

“We had at some races, Malaysia was probably the worst example, where rubber was building up on the straight part heading into the corner, that’s something that we’ve tried to make an improvement on, but that’s very hard to simulate when we’ve only got one test car going on its own so you don’t really create enough laps to evaluate that.”

“We’ll try to do something, but unfortunately if you want tyres that wear, the rubber’s got to go somewhere and all you can do is try to change the mechanism of that wear to make the bits that come off the tyres slightly smaller so that they don’t create such an effect. We will keep working on that, I’m not going to say we have a solution because we won’t know until we go racing again, but at the end of the day, we had the most overtaking in the history of the sport last year,” concluded Hembery.

Mercedes is the next team working on a copy of Lotus’ innovative ‘braking ride-height correction’ system ahead of the 2012 system.
Shortly after news broke that the former Renault team had devised a passive and therefore legal system to stabilise a car’s ride height under braking, reports emerged that Ferrari is “working on a similar system”.

The BBC said last week that it believed the Italian giant was “the only other team to have contacted the FIA” about the concept.

But Italian reports, including on the Italiaracing website and the daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, claim Mercedes GP is also working to “quickly copy” the Lotus idea.

Mercedes does not intend to take its new car, the W03, to the first official test at Jerez early next month, instead opting for additional factory time ahead of the second session at Barcelona.

It is also rumoured that Red Bull experimented with a Lotus-style braking system back in 2010 but abandoned it.

Pirelli will officially launch its 2012 season later this month, according to the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat.
The report said the Italian marque’s president Marco Tronchetti Provera will be present at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit when this year’s tyres and markings are revealed on 25 January.

Less than two weeks later, the teams will begin official pre-season testing at Jerez.

 Ferrari is awaiting a clarification about Lotus’ reportedly radical braking system for its 2012 car, Stefano Domenicali has revealed.
It emerged this week that Lotus, formerly Renault, intends to run the system this season after debuting it during the young driver test late last year.

“I know that some teams and the FIA have exchanged letters,” Ferrari team principal Domenicali is quoted by the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat from the ‘Wrooom’ media event in the Italian Dolomites.

“We are now expecting a definitive answer as to whether it is acceptable or not. Of course, we look at devices that affect the car’s performance,” he added.

La Gazzetta dello Sport quotes Domenicali as confirming that the Lotus system relates to braking stability.

The Spanish news agency Europa Press suggested that the legality of the system is being questioned because its movement reportedly affects the aerodynamics of the car.

“We need to wait to see the reaction of the FIA,” added Domenicali.

Livio Oricchio, the correspondent for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, wrote from Ferrari’s Madonna di Campiglio event that the FIA “has just declared legal the height control system developed by Lotus”.

Lotus could set the trend with the first major innovation of the 2012 season.
Finland’s Turun Sanomat reports that Giorgio Piolo – arguably F1′s most respected technical illustrator – has revealed that Lotus’ new car features a radical braking system.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the system is similar to the mass damper innovation pioneered by the Enstone based team (then Renault) some years ago.

The innovation was reportedly discovered during the young drivers’ test in Abu Dhabi.

Turun Sanomat explained that the driver-operated system involves adjustments to improve aerodynamic performance through the ride-height.

Lotus’ drivers in 2011 are Kimi Raikkonen, the returning 2007 world champion, and reigning GP2 champion Romain Grosjean.

 Mercedes is sure formula one engines will still sound good when the regulations change significantly in 2014.
The German marque, whose F1 engines are designed and built in Northamptonshire, is believed to be imminently ready to fire up its first 1.6 litre turbocharged V6.

But after the sound of F1 changed when the sport moved from normally-aspirated V10 to its current V8 engines in 2006, there have been fears the cars could sound comparatively tame when they are powered by turbo V6s in 2014.

Thomas Fuhr, managing director of Mercedes’ HighPerformanceEngines division, doesn’t think so.

“With the limit of 15,000 rpm, the engines will have a great sound,” he is quoted by Italy’s Tuttosport.

“With the six pipes going into the turbocharger I think the sound will be very nice,” added Fuhr.

Christian Horner insists he is not worried that pieces of a current-spec Red Bull front wing are currently sitting in the lounge rooms of fans — and possibly elsewhere.
After Mark Webber’s Monza crash, fans collected up the carbon fibre pieces of the mysterious and highly effective Adrian Newey-penned component.

“No problem. You can’t get any sensitive information from small pieces like that,” boss Horner is quoted by La Stampa newspaper after being shown newspaper photos of the wreckage in a Spanish spectator’s home.

It had been suggested that some of the other pieces had been delivered by ardent Ferrari fans to Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters, preceding the debut of a remarkably similar ‘flexing’ wing that is currently being tested by the famous team.

A Ferrari official is quoted as rubbishing the theory.

“If someone is able to understand from wreckage how something works, study it and put it into a design and build it and all of this in a month, that would not be formula one but something that does not exist,” he said.

Ferrari is still working to solve the ‘fluttering’ problem with Felipe Massa’s new 2012-style front wing.
The Red Bull-like wing – apparently designed to pass the aerodynamic load tests but still flex towards the track – was observed violently oscillating at high speed in India two weeks ago.

The Italian team said it had fixed the problem for Abu Dhabi but in the Friday practice sessions Massa’s wing was still ‘fluttering’ and sending up spectacular sparks when the extremities bottomed out.

“The reality is that we found something that was not correct in terms of the structure of that wing (in India) but apparently it seems that there is still a problem,” admitted team boss Stefano Domenicali.

But why isn’t the problem similarly affecting Fernando Alonso’s sister car?

“I have got engineers much more expert than me here that know that an effect on a wing can depend on a lot of issues, a lot of things,” said Domenicali.

“It depends on the setup of the car, depending on tyre pressure and so on. Maybe it is a combination of all these elements for our engineers to understand and react as it is not what we would like to see,” he added.

On the bright side, Massa said he was not aware of the problem until he saw the television replays.

And Ferrari is also happy to have encountered the problem now, before the crucial 2012 pre-season test period.

“We would have lost an entire week of testing,” an unnamed team member confided to Auto Motor und Sport.