Mercedes authorized for extended use of the wind tunnel
Mercedes has been authorized to use the wind tunnel more extensively for the development of their race cars.
The maximum usage time of the aerodynamic wind tunnel is limited by the FIA since the beginning of the 2022 season. The allowed time per team depends on the results of 2021 and the current year’s performances. After the 9th Grand Prix of the season, the FIA modified the time for each team. As a result, some teams had their wind tunnel time reduced, while others saw an increase.
This is the case of Mercedes AMG F1 which, this year, is far from the expected performances by the German team. Therefore, the FIA has allocated more time in the factory to allow Mercedes to recover from its poor performances. Mercedes is now behind Ferrari and Red Bull. This means that they will receive 80% of the total time, which is 10% more than during the first nine races of the season.
Thanks to this additional wind tunnel time, Mike Eliott, Technical Director of Mercedes, announced that improvements will be planned for Silverstone. We will bring new components to Silverstone, we will try to push the car forward, try to extract pace from the car we have or the package we have, as well as new elements that we will add.
I think Silverstone will be a circuit that suits us a little better, like Barcelona, but maybe it will be a bit more difficult. Whatever happens, we will push as hard as we can. Our drivers will push as hard as possible because we want to return to victory.
« We want to win for the team, we definitely want to win and we want to win for you, the fans. So we’ll see what happens. »
The German team is in third place in the constructor championship, with 188 points, which is 40 behind Ferrari and 116 units behind Red Bull, who are leading this ranking.
