Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn admits Mercedes’ “extreme” sidepod design was not anticipated, but doesn’t believe it breaches the new technical regulations.
Mercedes caused a stir on Thursday morning in Bahrain when it unveiled a radical interpretation of the 2022 rules package, showcasing heavily revised sidepods on the W13.
It was reported Mercedes would bring a significant upgrade package to Sakhir for the second pre-season test, with its bold design confirming those theories.
Speaking about Mercedes’ sidepod concept on the opening morning of the second test, Brawn expects it to prompt ” a lot of debate” over the coming days.
“I think there’s no doubt that the Mercedes concept we didn’t anticipate,” said Brawn. “I think it’s a very extreme interpretation of the regulation and I think there’s inevitably going to be a lot of debate about their interpretation.
“That’s what happens with new regulations. However hard you try to close off all the options – and believe me we closed off hundreds of them – the innovation in Formula 1 is always extreme.
“From our perspective, it’s largely about does it affect the objectives of the regulations. From the teams’ perspective, they want to be sure that no one’s taking an interpretation that they don’t feel is correct. So I think there’s going to be a lot of debate in the next few days.”
While Brawn is clear the range of different designs will be inspected more closely to ensure they comply with the new regulations, he hasn’t seen a concept that he consists to be “overly concerning”.
“I think it’s impossible to anticipate the creative scope of the teams,” Brawn said. “Once they get the regulations, you’ve got 1,000 engineers working on all the regulations and how they can use them.
“Some of these solutions quite honestly were never anticipated. “I think we will go back into investigating those solutions and make sure that they maintain the objectives of the new rules.
“I think they do. our initial impressions are that there’s nothing here that we would be overly concerned about in terms of those objectives of the regulations.
“It’s just fascinating to see such a wide range of solutions. What I think has become a step change for the teams is a lot of new cooler innovations, a lot of new innovation in the heat exchanges and the radiators that have become available and it’s given them more scope to create the designs we’ve got.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner dismissed reports that he had questioned the legality of Mercedes’ sidepods, with Red Bull issuing a statement to claim Horner’s quotes were “incorrect”.
Speaking to Sky, Horner played down claims he suggested Mercedes’ design did not comply with the new rules.
“I’m slightly surprised to be reading comments that I’m supposed to have been making,” Horner said.
“To be honest with you I haven’t paid a great deal of attention to it. It was obviously a fairly different concept but that’s for the aero guys and the designers to get into.”
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