Brawn says it: the Mercedes F-Duct must be improved

Ross Brawn, the head of Mercedes GP, admitted that the F-Duct system developed by his team still does not work as efficiently as it should.

Mercedes presented its own version of the process devised by McLaren at the Chinese Grand Prix last April; however, the German team is not yet completely satisfied with how it all works.

Brawn admitted that the Mercedes F-Duct still generates too much drag on the straights, and the team hopes to have rectified this issue before the next race in Canada, a circuit where top speed is crucial. He stated after the GP in Turkey: “I think when you have an F-Duct that works properly, you have downforce in the corners, and then you act on the drag to optimize the top speed on the straight. At the moment, we are not efficient enough on the straight with our F-Duct.”

Brawn recalls the advantage of having invented this process, but does not hide his desire to achieve a high-performance version:

As we have already said, McLaren was clever enough to originate this concept, which also means that there is much more experience. We have seen some teams give up in Turkey, but when the F-Duct works correctly, it is a very, very powerful tool. We have decided to persevere in this direction… In a sense, this process still works on our cars, but it does not give us a crucial advantage at the moment. We have a good compromise, but we will be a little vulnerable in top speed on the straight line. However, for now, we have to deal with this compromise in order to maintain consistency on the tires.

Despite concerns about the F-Duct, both Mercedes drivers, Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher, are hopeful of achieving a strong result in Canada.

Rosberg states: «Our Mercedes-Benz engine will certainly be of great help on the main straight. We will have some additional upgrades for this weekend, and the fact that the circuit’s characteristics are very different from Istanbul Park makes me go there with high hopes. I think we could achieve a great result.»

For his part, Schumacher adds: «The Gilles Villeneuve circuit raises the issue of very high speed and we have worked very hard on this point, especially since we know that we are not at the top in this area. However, I am convinced that we will be able to get the best out of our package.»

On the German team’s side, there is already talk of abandoning the development of this season’s car in favor of the one planned for next year. We remember that Brawn had already made this decision at Honda, giving him a clear advantage as soon as he arrived under his own name the following season. If these promised efforts do not improve the results, the next board meeting of the Stuttgart firm could reconsider the future of the star brand in F1: initially as an engine supplier to other teams, and then, perhaps, later as a team in its own right.