Mercedes deputy technical director Simone Resta has laid out the thinking behind the team’s contrarian development approach, which is geared towards the second half of the F1 season.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Italian engineer highlighted how the team produced a strong launch car, which has been supplemented with incremental updates and one larger step, before its planned upgrade push after the summer shutdown.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
While Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull introduced significant packages earlier in the campaign, Mercedes pursued a more measured programme with the W17.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Brackley-based team arrived in Melbourne with a strong baseline, added smaller updates across the opening phase of the year and saved its first major in-season package for Canada.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Team principal Toto Wolff framed that approach as a deliberate strategy, which has proven to be a departure from convention.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“We’ve tried to have it a little bit more second half of the season weighted,” Wolff said. “And we’ll see if that is enough.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Resta expanded on the Mercedes boss’ remarks at the Hungarian Grand Prix, explaining that Mercedes has carefully paced its updates in a season where rivals have repeatedly brought visible changes to their cars, including Ferrari, which appears to have front-loaded its development more considerably than others.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“Ultimately, I think we tried to have strong development for the first race from the winter test,” Resta told media, including RacingNews365. “Then we have had, at almost every race, a little step here and there, and then another big step in Canada.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ Montreal package included a revised front wing, endplates, corner assemblies and floor elements, and helped the team stave off its fast-charging rivals, with the Silver Arrows maintaining its healthy early-season points advantage.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Mercedes leads the constructors’ championship, but Ferrari has prevented the gap from growing materially from the 70 points it was after the Miami Grand Prix, four rounds into the campaign; with the deficit now at 72.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
With larger upgrades planned for after the summer shutdown, Mercedes’ break from the norm will finally face scrutiny.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“Probably, after the shutdown, we will try to focus on having something more sizeable on the car,” Resta added.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
“We are clearly focused on trying to develop the car at every event, but also trying to think bigger by bringing another step to the car.”\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes deputy technical director Simone Resta has laid out the thinking behind the team’s contrarian development approach, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-844631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}