Tech analysis: Mercedes F1 W05

It took a big step forward in competitiveness in 2013, but Mercedes has a point to prove and its new car underlines this.

The Mercedes F1 W05 was revealed in the Jerez pitlane on Tuesday and its design shows that there's a great depth of independent thinking at Mercedes, with its U-shaped nose and shrunken engine cover.

There's a close family resemblance to the 2013 car, although clearly everything is new. The rounded nose of the W05 bears similarities to the concept of last year's, with a quite-rounded crash structure tipped with an inverted U shape.

Effectively, Mercedes counts the leading edge of the front-wing pylons as the nose tip. Cleverly, this shape allows the nose to be a little higher.

To ensure legality, the oversized sections of the front-wing pylons forming the nose tip have to stop 10mm above the front wing. So we see the actual front-wing mounts being far smaller and rearward under the 'fake' mountings.

The nose then sweeps smoothly up to the front bulkhead. From here, the chassis rises to the maximum height with a small wedge-shaped vanity panel smoothing the step. This panel is separate to the nosecone and appears to reveal the access hatches to the front suspension when removed.

From this point back to the cockpit, the Mercedes chassis runs at the maximum height to allow the most airflow under the car.

Cooling for the new powertrain is packaged very neatly within relatively small sidepods. This is surprising in light of a) the size of other Mercedes-engined cars and b) that no other inlets appear to be provided around the rollhoop as on the McLaren or Force India.

Equally neat are the sidepod outlets, which flank the gearbox. Other teams are ducting heat around the exhaust area, which on the W05 is tightly wrapped by the engine cover.

Indeed, the engine cover is near-shrinkwrapped around the engine and its turbo. Bulges at the tail of the top body are to clear the turbocharger and the cylinder heads. This slimming leaves the engine cover with a thin shark fin to meet the minimum bodywork area demanded by the rules.

Under the skin, the car runs the Mercedes 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged power unit, and the ties are closer between the race team and the engine facility than ever.

Mercedes has mounted the ERS batteries and electronic hardware in a single unit under the fuel tank for a few seasons. This practice is likely to continue, freeing up space in the sidepods, albeit at the cost of a longer monocoque.

Blowing through its mandatory single tailpipe, the turbo exhaust exits between the rear-wing mounting pylons. As yet these are devoid of winglets, but there are telltale signs of mounting points for aero devices above and below the exhaust exit.

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This year, the rules prohibit bodywork in line with the exhaust tailpipes axis, but over and under the exhaust is all quite legal. Also there was an assumption that the so-called 'monkey-seat' winglets above the tail lamp were banned for this year.

But they are still allowed and can be even wider, up to 20cm wide from just 15cm last year. These winglets will be a critical area of aero to exploit to regain the downforce lost by the new regulations.

Above the exhaust, the rear wing has to be 5cm shallower this year. To improve its performance, Mercedes has fitted tall slots in the endplate - these allow the wing to flow more air and create more downforce.

When viewed from behind, the slimness of the sidepods and fairing around the gearbox are apparent. These allow a greater flow of air over the diffuser, which provides greater downforce.

The sidepods are very slim on the W05 © LAT

To aid the direction of the air over the gearbox, Mercedes appears to have fitted Red Bull-style vanes on top of the diffuser and continues to exploit a flap wrapped around the diffuser's perimeter.

So effective is the car in this area that Mercedes has been able to retain its extremely outswept diffuser exit. It was thought that the lack of exhaust blowing would not support such an aggressive design.

Oddly, the middle of the diffuser features a tall U-shaped vent. This aligns with the starter-motor hole, but seems counterintuitive to downforce production as it robs the diffuser of crucial volume to expand the airflow.

Mercedes' weakness in recent years has been tyre management. The rear suspension is not an aggressive concept, as with McLaren for example. But, if the aero detailing provides lots of downforce, then perhaps the team may have solved its problem at last.

You get the feeling that the team has thrown everything at this design to make that final step towards consistent race-winning performance.

On Tuesday morning the W05 became the first F1 car to complete a public lap this year, and up until its accident - due to a front-wing failure - it was lapping reliably.

With potential pace, tyre management and reliability, this could be the year Mercedes has been waiting for.