Mercedes and McLaren are reportedly working on the ride height adjuster

By developing an ingenious hydraulic system that maintains the ride height of its single-seater during braking and acceleration, the Lotus F1 Team has likely hit upon the innovation that will be the talk of the factories and the paddock in the coming weeks.

However, although such a system seems difficult to copy, certain sources close to Maranello claim that Ferrari would already have such a system on its next car, while the Italian site Omnicorse.it indicates that the Mercedes W03 could also be equipped with it. Indeed, Autosport revealed this week that the system developed by Lotus had been submitted for validation to the competent authorities in 2010 before receiving the green light in 2011. Moreover, the current technical director of the German team, the British Bob Bell, was still the Executive Director of the team based in Enstone at the time this system was developed.

According to Omnicorse.it, this would justify the fact that Mercedes will not participate in the Jerez tests with its new car but, unlike its rivals, will wait for the Barcelona tests that will begin on February 21. The announcement of this late entry into action of the W03 had created surprise since the Brackley team had very quickly stopped the development of the W02 to focus on its 2012 challenger and should theoretically be more advanced than their direct rivals.

The Italian site indicates, however, that unlike Mercedes – and possibly Ferrari – McLaren would not yet have this system, even though well-informed sources claim that something will already be seen on the MP4-27 during the last testing session before the start of the season, conceding, however, that the men from Woking are much less optimistic.