Formula 1

F1 News: Mercedes Car Found To Be Compliant Despite Red Bull Complaints

Despite the Mercedes W13 F1 car coming under scrutiny from a number of teams including Red Bull for their interesting mirror design and lack of sidepods, the FIA has found the car to be complaint after “more extensive physical inspections”.

Every car is checked before each race, but this year, the FIA is said to be testing a single car each race in a much more meticulous fashion. These cars are selected at random from a top-10 winner.

After Lewis Hamilton finished P10 in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix two weekends ago, the car was eligible for the check and was scooped up by the FIA so they could give it a once (or twice) over.

“After the race, car number 44 [Hamilton] was randomly chosen among the top 10 cars for more extensive physical inspections,” the document from the FIA reads.

“Subject to these physical inspections were all front inboard suspension components.

“All inspected components were found to be in compliance with the 2022 Formula 1 Technical Regulations.”

Now, with the Australian GP on the horizon, Mercedes has confirmed that yet again, they won’t be aiming for any wins this weekend with the car still struggling with porpoising. Andy Shovlin, Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering, has even admitted that it’s such a huge issue for the team, they’re not sure whether it will be fixed this year.

“That’s probably priority number one because that’s ultimately preventing us from running the car where we’d like to run it for optimum performance,” he admitted to Motorsport.com.

“What we don’t know is, if we could just magically make that issue vanish, where would we actually be in terms of car pace: is the car fast enough or not? And it’s very difficult to answer that question.”

We’ll find out more as practicing for the Australian GP sets off tomorrow.

Alex Harrington

Alex started racing at a young age so certainly knows his way around a car and a track. He can just about put a sentence together too, which helps. He has a great interest in the latest models, but would throw all of his money at a rusty old French classic and a 300ZX. Contact: [email protected]

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