The FIA did not lift a finger to prevent Mercedes from running an 18:1 compression ratio internal-combustion engine, nor will it lift a finger to touch anything about its front wing. This is the decision they made in Japan, despite the collection of evidence and questions Ferrari presented to them regarding it after the Chinese Grand Prix.
Several videos revealed that the front wing of Mercedes’ Formula 1 car closes in stages. In other words, there is a kind of pause in the closure of the active aerodynamics, but only in some corners. Ferrari is convinced that Mercedes is benefiting from another illegal trick, but the FIA has bigger problems.
The Mercedes F1 Front Wing Closes in Stages
The FIA will not ban Mercedes’ active aerodynamics. Despite the evidence Ferrari presented at Suzuka, the governing body of Formula 1 considers that everything is in order on the world-dominant car, and that even though we’ve all seen odd things in Mercedes’ front wing in China.
After the Shanghai race, several videos leaked showing that the Mercedes front wing closed in stages, but only at certain corner heights. In other words, when approaching a certain type of turn the wing stayed halfway closed for a time, and eventually closed completely. This is completely prohibited by the regulations.
The regulation states that active aerodynamics must close fully within a maximum of 400 milliseconds, far less than how long Mercedes’ front wing took to close in China. However, from the star team’s side they’ve argued that it was only an innocent calculation error. And it has stuck.
Mercedes spent the entire weekend with that alleged calculation error, unsolved from Friday to Sunday. Ferrari protested and presented a series of tests and questions about it, but the FIA has brushed them off: there will be no penalty for Mercedes, and they will only take action if it happens again.
According to Ferrari, what Mercedes is doing is circumventing the sensor, making it believe that the wing closed in time when it actually did not. In other words, once again bypassing the rules by deceiving the measuring device so that no one realizes, exactly the same as what is happening with the engine compression.
Mercedes would be using this to improve braking and the car’s weight transfer. We’ll see if, by this ad hoc legalization, the other teams take note.
Images | Mercedes
