Mercedes F1 2024 believes it has finally found the ideal ride height for its Formula 1 car. Despite failing to do so for the previous two seasons.
The German manufacturer has endured a challenging time since the switch to ground-effect cars at the begin of the 2022 campaign.
Final year’s W13 was cursed by proposing, and the squad fought with a little ride height working window. Where its car created downforce, which viably constrained it to run exceptionally near to the ground.
This had a twofold whammy impact of risking bouncing as the downforce levels expanded but too required the car to be run with solid suspension. That uncovered it to issues with bumpy tracks and kerbs.
For this year’s W14, the group pointed at conveying downforce over a much more extensive run of ride heights. Which it felt would be made a difference by the FIA lifting the edge of the floors by 15mm.
But it is caught on Mercedes finished up being as well cautious with its ride stature approach. Having been bashful of running near to the ground. It found itself running much higher than others – which cleared out execution on the table.
And having run as well low in 2022, and as well tall this year, chief specialized officer Mike Elliott accepts it has got things legitimately tended to for its W15 2024 car.
Inquired by Autosport in the event that he felt Mercedes had pinpointed the sweet spot.
Elliott said:
“The real difficulty is, if you look at the aero testing restrictions, you’ve got so limited a number of runs, and you’ve got to pick a direction and go for it. If you go down the route of saying I want to develop a car for high ride height or low ride height, and I want to be able to cover all my bases, then suddenly you’d be doing like three runs a week on each one and going nowhere.”
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