Mercedes: a new livery and new parts in Barcelona

The return to Europe often marks the second start of the season, at the very least, the moment when the first significant updates are integrated into the cars, with teams taking advantage of the proximity to their bases. The Mercedes team will not be an exception.

Despite everything, among the changes that will be present on the Mercedes W04, the most spectacular should be aesthetic as, according to the German correspondent of the newspaper Bild, Frank Schneider, the livery will be more silver and less gray. This news was confirmed by Niki Lauda himself: “We wanted the car to look more like a ‘Silver Arrow.’ And we believe it’s also a good thing for the team because a new look brings new motivation.”

Beyond the purely visual aspect, the Brackley team will arrive in Barcelona with redesigned exhausts and new front and rear wings. Niki Lauda, non-executive director of the brand, hopes for substantial gains: During the European season, we want to improve by one to two tenths per Grand Prix. We’ve been doing good work since the start of the season. Now, it’s vital to develop the car faster than the competition.

Ross Brawn, the team principal, relayed by our colleagues at F1Technical.net, explains on his side what have been and will be the areas of development: « We have focused our efforts on two key areas: finalizing our aerodynamic package improvement for Spain and understanding our lack of race pace in Bahrain. We have made progress and will evaluate some developments in the upcoming race weekends to help improve the situation. We are not there yet [at the level] but we are making progress and, obviously, performing in the race is what really counts. »

Toto Wolff, executive director of Mercedes, added: Our objective is to improve our Sunday afternoon performance to match what we produced on Saturday in the last two races (two pole positions, with Nico Rosberg in China and Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain, ed.). It will certainly be interesting to see the progress each team has made since the last time we were on the track and how the planned updates work from one car to another.

« The Circuit de Catalunya is a track we know well, and we have a lot of data from pre-season testing to prepare for the weekend, » explains R. Brawn. « However, in more spring-like conditions, we can expect the track to be of a very different nature than what we experienced earlier this year. Overtaking is more difficult here than on most of the early season tracks and, of course, all teams will bring new developments, so the weekend should provide an interesting challenge. »

Responding to some predictions placing Mercedes as the favorite in Barcelona, based on winter testing on the same track, Niki Lauda is less optimistic and points to tire uncertainty: « We are not favorites. Pirelli is bringing new tires and no one knows yet how they work; they have been very stingy with information. »