James Allison, Mercedes Technical Director stated that F1 team Mercedes have been happy with their cars, however, they have concerns and fear regarding the tyres which are being introduced in the year 2021.
The latest regulations in F1 includes the introduction of new tyre compounds from Pirelli. However, the F1 cars in 2021 will remain the same as 2020 but with few minor changes.
Allison says that the new tyres and aerodynamic changes are the major tweaks to the 2021 F1 cars which has instilled fear in the team as it is a step into the unknown.
"We are very happy with the mechanical platform," Allison mentioned.
“She puts the tyres in the window where they work best in most races. The car is reliable. The engine is excellent. The car is well balanced. The aerodynamics go well with the mechanics. That’s a good foundation.
“Still, we have fears. There is a new tyre next year. That came as a bit of a surprise. We had some clues about this tyre at Portimao, but since it was a blind test on a completely new track, it wasn’t very illuminating.
“We got better information in the last two races. We will use the data to learn whether the tyre fits our mechanical and aerodynamic platform as well as it did before.
“We won’t have wind tunnel tyres for a while. Then we don’t yet know how close the first set of these wind tunnel tyres is to reality. Usually, there are still differences at the beginning.
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“The second concern is how the new aerodynamic rules will play out. These aerodynamic changes are pretty big, so big that we can’t assume that our platform will automatically continue to work this well.”
The 2020 season was tough on the teams as they were unable to optimize their cars to its fullest potential due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, Allison says that due to the lockdown in the United Kingdom, the team lost as much as a fifth of their time to work on the W11, and stopped introducing some upgrades as early as the first month of the season.
“We stopped earlier than usual,” he said.
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“Due to the lockdown, we lost seven weeks of wind tunnel work. A season usually lasts 35 weeks. So we had a fifth less time.
“Our last aerodynamic development was completed in mid-July, one and a half months earlier than usual. The last upgrade came to the car in Spa.
“We brought a total of three upgrades. In Austria, Silverstone and the smallest in Spa.”
In conclusion, Allison admits that the F1-team Mercedes fear over the tyres which is bound to come in 2021. The team does not have much data regarding the new tyres which could have provided them an idea as to how it will perform with the new cars.
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