MERC-AMG DUALAXIS STEERING
> THE 2020 SEASON CAUGHT FIRE PRETTY QUICKLY
when title favourite Mercedes AMG unveiled a radical new invention for its title defence. What onboard footage from the W11s of Hamilton and Bottas revealed was a steering wheel that not only turned left and right, but also plunged forward and pulled back. Fans and pundits were left scratching their heads, while rival technicians once again wept quietly in darkened corners. This, according to Merc’s tech supremo James Allison, was Dual-Axis Steering (DAS).
DAS is an unprecedented system that allows the driver to adjust the toe on the W11’s front wheels at any given moment. A modern F1 car usually has a visible degree of toe-out, where the front wheels splay slightly away from each other. This makes it more stable in the corners, but also increases wear to the inside edge of the tyres and makes getting heat to the outside harder, reducing their overall efficiency. But DAS, in theory at least, allows the driver to eliminate the toe-out on the straights, creating more even heat distribution and reducing tyre wear, while maintaining the ideal geometry for corners. It might also further reduce drag on the straights, but to be honest, no one’s 100 per cent sure what the full benefits of DAS actually are. Probably not even Mercedes.
Devilishly clever anyway, but surely not within the rules? Well, yes and no. Mercedes did the age-old F1 thing of thinking around a problem by reinterpreting the rules that govern it. It did everything by the book and there was nothing the FIA could do but accept the concept for this season and promptly ban it for next. Which sadly means, with 2020 drastically foreshortened, we may never see DAS operating to its full potential. (Cue sound of corks popping in Maranello).