The perfect Formula 1 car from 2016

There's no doubt the best overall package of the 2016 Formula 1 season was the Mercedes W07 Hybrid. The car allowed Mercedes to complete a hat-trick of drivers' and constructors' titles, as world champion Nico Rosberg and team-mate Lewis Hamilton won 19 of the 21 grands prix between them.

However, being the best overall doesn't necessarily mean being the best in every aspect. Often, there were areas in which rival teams had the best solution.

If we could join these parts together to form an imaginary perfect 2016 F1 race car, what would it look like?

RED BULL FRONT WING/NOSE

Since the advent of the current aero regulations in 2009, Red Bull has had the ideal set-up with a nose down/tail up raked attitude to its car. Its layout placed the engine further forward in the car by having a shorter fuel tank.

These traits are seen on the Mercedes, which still has fantastic aerodynamic performance, but the Red Bull layout appears to offer more potential for downforce.

The rake angles the entire car in a nose-down attitude, making the entire floor act as a diffuser. The diffuser itself is effectively taller, which in turn lowers the pressure under the floor for more downforce. An added bonus is that the front wing sits lower to the track, which allows it to run in ground effect, again for more downforce.

To make this work, the front wing needs to be designed for low ride height. Red Bull has refined its front wing over the years, and while this year's version is not the most complex on the grid, it works perfectly with the raked set-up.

The short, thumb-tipped nose design is similar to that of many other teams. But Red Bull works the front wing mounting pylons into twisted shapes to start turning the airflow around the car.

The Red Bull engine-forwards layout has been a success for the team since the 2009 RB5. The engine creates a large obstruction to creating a slim rear end, so pushing it forward in the car allows the coke bottle shape of the sidepods to be narrower.

To achieve this layout, the fuel tank must be shorter. But it can only be 80cm wide, so the usual practice of packaging the ERS electronics under the fuel tank with the battery cannot be used. Red Bull places the ERS control units in the sidepods, freeing up the fuel tank volume for a shorter tank.

MERCEDES SUSPENSION

One of Mercedes' strongest suits for many years has been its understanding of suspension set-up, from FRIC to the current passive hydraulic pitch control system.

This allows the W07 to have suppleness through turns for mechanical grip, then stiffer control for fast turns and to prevent dive under braking. Moreover, the external wishbones and trackrods aid aerodynamic performance through their careful shaping.

Mercedes' complex suspension has matured over many years. Even after FRIC was banned, both the front and rear suspension included a hydraulically operated gas spring mounted in the sidepod.

It's the nature of the nitrogen 'spring' and the hydraulic valves that gives the suspension its position-sensitive effect to control the attitude of the car through turns and under braking.

Out in the airflow, the innovatively shaped lower front wishbones are a much-copied idea. Their design is instead of the usual wide-spaced, two-legged wishbone, with the two legs conjoined into a narrower spaced arm that forms one large aero surface. This helps prevent the upwash from the front wing from expanding up over the car's upper bodywork.

MERCEDES ENGINE

There's no doubting the choice of engine for our perfect F1 car. Since 2014, the Mercedes power unit has set the standard. This is a neat package with a split turbo and lean burn combustion technology that is both fuel efficient and able to deliver big horsepower.

Contrary to the Red Bull method, the Mercedes engine packages a lot of its hardware on the front of the engine, which encroaches into the fuel tank area. This is the price for the other benefits of the split turbo, such as the shorter exhaust and inlet paths and better separation of the heat from the exhaust and inlet.

Having one end of the turbo driving the other through the "V" of the engine is a tricky engineering task, especially with turbo speeds of up to 125,000rpm.

The trick to engineering this long shaft between the two parts of the turbo is not to make a torsionally stiff shaft, which would keep both sides operating at the same RPM simultaneously, but rather to use a flexible shaft that twists as the turbine spins up and the larger compressor overcomes its inertia. This way, the turbo and the MGU it is connected to are able to operate efficiently and reliably.

Inside the combustion engine, Mercedes has its own pre-chamber set-up and this has allowed the engine to produce a lot of power despite the restricted fuel flow. This has allowed the drivers to handle more than 900hp, while still able to race with starting fuel loads of well under 100kg.

MERCEDES BARGEBOARDS

If Red Bull has the ideal aero layout, then Mercedes is the king of the details. All the aero devices along the edge of the car are broken up into sharp-edged vortex producing surfaces that shape the flow along the car.

Most impressive has been the bargeboards. Most teams run a single surface with perhaps a few slots for finer airflow control, while Mercedes boasts an aero device made up of six vanes and some nine floor level blades. These break up and redirect the airflow around and under the car, at a level of complexity not matched by any other team.

FERRARI GEARBOX/CLUTCH

Mating a Ferrari transmission to the Mercedes power unit gives the best of both worlds, not least because Ferrari mounts the gear cluster itself inside a tiny carbonfibre cartridge unit that sits inside the carbonfibre outer casing.

Splitting the gearbox's job of housing the gear cluster and supporting the rear suspension with this cartridge set-up allows Ferrari to make suspension changes to the outer casing without incurring gearbox penalties. Everything packaged together like this allows Ferrari to raise the hardware clear of the floor for better aerodynamics.

But Ferrari's transmission would be the choice because of its excellent start performance, something its rivals have been lacking. Even with this year's regulation that a single clutch paddle has to be used to control the two phases of the start, Ferrari was able to make fast and consistent getaways.

Although this was at one point believed to be because of a scooter-style centrifugal clutch, the main reason is largely detail design and a long clutch paddle on the steering wheel.

FERRARI SIDEPODS/COOLING

The current engines create huge amounts of heat, requiring large coolers in large sidepods to manage the power unit's thermal demands. Last season, Ferrari hit upon a series of louvres under and over the radiators to micromanage airflow through the cooler's core.

This year the roll hoop and engine cover form a 'third sidepod' that feeds not only the engine's airbox, but also a twin intercooler set up for the turbo. This lowers air temperature going into the engine and keeps it consistently low too.

WILLIAMS WHEELNUTS

Every team will chase tenths of seconds in the race to be competitive, and Williams has found that whole seconds can be found by being consistent and fast with pitstops.

Typically hovering around the two-second mark for a full set of four tyres and holding the record for the fastest stop at 1.92s, Williams has developed its wheels, axles and wheelnuts to gain time over the course of a race.

Out of 21 races, Williams had the fastest single pitstop of the race 14 times.

TORO ROSSO REAR WING

Every now and then, there's a new aero concept that every team soon starts to follow. Knowing it would have a power deficit over the course of the year with its year-old Ferrari engine, Toro Rosso found speed with its rear wing efficiency.

This initially took the form of an open louvred endplate, where the louvres commonly fitted to every car's rear wing endplates extended forwards to be open on the leading edge.

This reduces drag and along with some complex rear wing profiles, Toro Rosso could find downforce without excessive drag penalties to keep its competitiveness alive with a down-on-power engine.