NOW THAT WAS A CAR
The ‘diva’ that set the stage for the wide-bodied Formula 1 era
The title-winning Mercedes W08
Next year a radically different technical formula – many details of which are still frustratingly undefined – promises to usher in a new era of on-track drama. The vision of a cost-controlled formula enabling a level playing field, populated by exciting but closely matched machinery, sounds positively utopian. As the wide-body era of Formula 1 draws to a close after five seasons, it’s worth remembering how the present technical formula was born of a similarly lofty ambition to shake up the competitive order – and how a group of F1’s smartest engineering operators pulled together to thwart that goal.
Seen through the prism of the record books, the 2017 W08 is just one of a run of victorious Mercedes F1 cars, but it
“LIKE ITS KEY RIVALS, MERCEDES FOCUSED ON ADVANCING ITS 2016 CONCEPT SO IT COULD TAPER DEVELOPMENT IN FAVOUR OF THE NEXT CAR AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE ”
represents a pivotal moment in the hybrid era – one where the rule-makers tried to snuff out Mercedes’ dominance but botched the hit. Moves to put the brakes on Mercedes’ runaway performance began as early as the winter of 2014-15, just one season into the hybrid engine formula. Among the noisiest objectors was Bernie Ecclestone, who loathed the muted volume of the hybrid powertrains and demanded action to make the cars look and sound faster and more dramatic.
This being F1, though, the only thing the tempestuous stakeholders could agree upon was the desired outcome of pegging Mercedes back. Of a clear strategy to reach this point
there was no sign, merely a grab-bag of competing pie-in-thesky proposals, set against the increasingly repetitive mood music of sundry Red Bull bigwigs warning that the energy drinks empire would quit F1 unless its demands were granted.
Achieving any kind of consensus took more than a year, by which time talk of loosening the fuel-conservation restrictions to enable the engines to develop well over 1000bhp had been nipped in the bud. Wisely, too, for it was unlikely Pirelli would have been able to develop tyres to cope with such outputs, given the teams’ inability to agree on who should provide test cars. Also kicked out was the idea of reintroducing refuelling.
Ecclestone’s original knee-jerk wishlist of slashing laptimes by up to six seconds through having wider, lighter cars running bigger tyres was also refined, as it dawned on the rulemakers that bigger cars running larger wheels could not be made any lighter without compromising safety. The final wording of the new regulations wasn’t agreed until late April 2016, scant weeks before teams would begin work on designing their 2017 cars. Among the headline dilutions was the halving of the originally proposed laptime reduction, and on top of that there was a capitulation to the inevitable: rather than going down, minimum weight would have to go up, from 702kg to 722kg “plus tyres” (reckoned to be 6kg).
Like its key rivals, Mercedes focused on advancing its 2016 concept so it could taper development in favour of the next car as early as possible. It also, in the words of chief designer John Owen, envisioned the W08 as “a 90% car”, one whose initial form was deliberately packaged far less tightly than normal so key components could be relocated if necessary as aerodynamic development progressed.
It was the multi-element nature of the new rules which dictated this policy. The front wing, arguably the single most influential aerodynamic component of the car, grew from 1650mm wide to 1800mm; track grew by 200mm in tandem with wider front (by 60mm) and rear (by 80mm) tyres; minimum car width expanded by 200mm; the ‘exclusion zone’ ahead of the sidepods grew, offering more scope for bargeboard development; the diffuser could be 50mm higher and begin 175mm further forwards; and the rear wings were 150mm lower and 200mm wider. Each of these changes in isolation would have required detailed research. Introducing them all at once favoured teams with the greatest design resource.
But resource alone doesn’t guarantee success. Aerodynamic research is a science, an iterative process grounded in measurement and repeatability. Try to change too much, too soon, and you lose track of cause and effect. To that end Mercedes evaluated key features that were central to its aero philosophy throughout 2016 on the W07, including the narrow nose treatment which would be largely carried over to the W08. Having a concrete understanding of how this worked would be crucial to the designers’ next steps.
Continuity in this central part of the front wing and nose, and around the floor, was a huge benefit to Mercedes because it’s this area which sets up beneficial vortices which accelerate airflow between the nose cone and the front wheels. Other elements of front-wing furniture, ones which grew with the
2017 regulations, did have a downforce-generation effect but they also served the purpose of steering air around the front wheels – even more important now those wheels were wider.
The area behind the front wheels would become a key development battleground through 2017 as several teams struggled to simulate the turbulent wake accurately, particularly when steering lock was applied. It was another example of how the new rules amplified the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Like its rivals, Mercedes only built the floor and sideimpact structures of the W08 out to the full width dictated by the regulations, and put the larger area of floor to work as a downforce generator. To benefit the work of the bargeboards and flow conditioners around the cockpit it innovated in the front suspension area, mounting the top wishbone much higher, which required a downswept ‘stub’ at the tip to reach the wheel hub. Ferrari created similar benefits with a different solution on its SF70H, raising the air intakes out of the wake of the suspension and making the crash structure serve a neat dual purpose, integrated with the flow conditioners which steered air around the sidepods.
Ferrari also scored an early political victory with a welltimed request to the FIA for a ‘technical clarification’ regarding front suspension systems. Both Mercedes and Red Bull had found a means of reproducing the effect of banned hydraulic technologies which connected the front and rear suspension to control the car’s ride height, offering an aerodynamic benefit.
The new system stored energy from suspension loadings and could redeploy it to move the mountings of the ‘heave’ spring which governs vertical movement at the front of the car, in effect pre-loading it. Helping the car to ride bumps and kerbs more smoothly delivered clear benefits in terms of enabling the aerodynamic devices to work more consistently. Ferrari’s request, including a detailed description of how such a system might work if fitted to its own car, received the unequivocal response that it would contravene the rules. Mercedes and Red Bull duly had to drop theirs before the start of the season.
How much of an effect this had on the W08’s performance is impossible to tell from an outsider’s perspective. But the opening tranche of races in 2017 revealed that the car, while quick, was also frustratingly quirky. It also had to be beefed up after fragile parts broke too easily during winter testing. Occasionally the drivers found it impossible to get all four tyres into the right temperature ‘window’ to yield peak grip. Team principal Toto Wolff memorably labelled the W08 “a diva”.
Speaking to GP Racing after the season, John Owen put it plainly: “We built a lot of adjustment into the car, the capability to react to things we saw. Unfortunately, most of the things we had to adapt to we hadn’t seen coming. So, we carried a lot of compromise through the year for things that didn’t need to be changed and we struggled a bit with those that did…”
In Australia Lewis Hamilton, now partnered with Valtteri Bottas after Nico Rosberg’s bombshell retirement, put his W08 on pole but then lost out to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel
in a straight fight in the race. The SF70H was as quick as the W08 but less aggressive on its tyres; turning around this key weakness became Mercedes’ focus as Vettel teased out a slender championship lead over the first half of the season.
Hamilton won in China, Bottas in Russia, then at the Spanish GP Mercedes introduced an upgrade centred around an even narrower nose cone – so narrow that it had to go through the FIA crash test again. The revised aerodynamic concept also featured a ‘cape’ and winglet on either side of the nose, along with refinements to the bargeboards. Hamilton won from pole but it was still a wrestle, requiring him to pass Vettel for the lead in the final third of the race.
Hamilton was victorious again in Montréal and at Silverstone, while Bottas won in Austria, yet still Vettel kept his nose ahead. The turning point of the season arguably came at Spa-francorchamps, where Hamilton once again annexed pole and parried every challenge Vettel sent his way. Lewis left
“MERCEDES INTRODUCED AN UPGRADE CENTRED AROUND AN EVEN NARROWER NOSE CONE – SO NARROW THAT IT HAD TO GO THROUGH THE FIA CRASH TEST AGAIN”
Belgium trailing by just seven points, and this would be the last round from which Vettel emerged ahead.
Following a muted performance at Monza Ferrari’s season imploded as Vettel and team-mate Kimi Räikkonen collided with Max Verstappen’s Red Bull on the first lap in Singapore, then reliability problems pegged Vettel back in Malaysia and Japan. Hamilton put the championship beyond reach with two rounds to go, a scenario which would have seemed unthinkable a few months earlier.
Thus the ‘diva’ W08 ended the season as F1’s most successful car, having won 12 of the 20 rounds. Mercedes had withstood the assaults upon its dominance, though a few cracks had shown through. Technical director James Allison spoke of how its successor would be a car which was “easier to throw at a racetrack”.
And what of the rulemakers’ desired outcome of improving the spectacle? It had been a more dramatic season than several of the preceding ones, but the new cars had made overtaking more difficult rather than easier. Nico Rosberg had predicted this state of affairs as early as April 2016, when he pointed out that reliance on downforce made it harder for cars to get close enough to overtake, so boosting downforce in the name of laptime made no sense.
Wider cars brought both obvious and unintended consequences. It ought to have been clear that overtaking would be harder because they took up more room on track, as Daniel Ricciardo pointed out. Less easily foreseen was the disruptive wake they would leave, making it harder for following cars to draw close in corners – prompting yet another technical rethink within two seasons.
The W08, meanwhile, emboldened Mercedes to think bigger and extend its dominance through the remainder of the wide-body era.
SPECIFICATION
Chassis Carbonfibre monocoque Suspension Double wishbones with inboard pushrod-actuated (front) and pullroad actuated (rear) torsion springs and rockers
Engine Mercedes-amg F1 M08 turbocharged hybrid V6
Engine capacity 1600cc
Power 950bhp@15000rpm (est) Gearbox Mercedes eight-speed semi-automatic
Tyres Pirelli
Weight 728kg (including tyres) Notable drivers Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas