Mercedes to get new nose, be even more dominant in F1 (Update)

UPDATE Mercedes AMG may have the upper hand at the moment but the team engineers are fully aware that their rival will catch up, so they keep developing the mighty W05.

A new nose introduced in Shanghai is shorter than the previous version.

It is actually the nose design (see photos below) around which the car was originally conceived, but the team struggled to get it through the FIA frontal impact test, so had to delay its introduction until now.

Old Nose

New Nose made the Mercedes even more dominant

The new design moves the most forward part of the nose rearward towards the trailing edge of the central part of the front wing.

It also allows heightens the gap between the underside of the nose and the upper wing surface. Both of these changes separate the airflow that is displaced by the wing and the airflow that is displaced by the nose.

This allows more airflow through between the front wing mounting pillars, making the airflow to the leading edge of the underfloor more consistent, hence allowing the underfloor to produce more downforce.

With a new nose coming for the Mercedes team, the rest of the F1 teams are wasting their time even showing up the remainder of the season.

04/17/14 (GMM) Mercedes could pull even further clear of the field in Shanghai, after readying for its debut arguably the most expensive new front nose in F1 history.

Actually, the dominant Brackley squad wanted its ultra-short nose to be fitted to the silver W05 in Melbourne, but it had failed the mandatory FIA crash test.

It then failed the test two more times.

But Germany's Auto Motor und Sport reports from Shanghai that, on the fourth attempt, the constantly tweaked new design finally made the grade.

The successful test was held on Wednesday — yesterday.

"Experts had doubted that Mercedes could ever meet the crash test standards with such a short nose," correspondent Michael Schmidt said in China.

Schmidt added that the nose, so short that the tip is actually behind the main element of the wing, will now be raced this weekend.

"The car will be easier to balance with this solution," said designer Aldo Costa.

Team boss Toto Wolff explains: "The car was designed for the short nose. What we have had until now has been only a stopgap."

If Mercedes takes another step forward in performance, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg are likely to be left out the front of the field, possibly fighting wheel-to-wheel for victory as in Bahrain.

German Rosberg, second two weeks ago, hinted on Thursday that he was not entirely happy with some of Hamilton's aggressive tactics in Bahrain.

"The majority was tough but respectable, so let's go with that, rather than pick out one small example," he said.