F1’s greatest ever car? Why the Mercedes W05 can stake a claim

As we continue to search for F1’s greatest machine, we turn our attention to Mercedes, a team that dominated the sport for a number of years at the beginning of the hybrid era.

During that time period they had several cars that we could add to the list and in the future some of them might find their way into the conversation. However, we’ll start with the car that kicked off that success, as F1 embarked on a new era.

New beginnings

F1 has gone through a significant number of regulation changes down the years but in 2014 the sport hit a massive reset button and ushered in a technological revolution.

Over a decade later and the cars are still powered by those same V6 turbo-hybrid powerunits, which are some of the most thermally efficient powertrains on the planet, all whilst producing near on 1000bhp.

And, whilst there’s a little more parity amongst F1’s powerunit manufacturers now, it was Mercedes who charged ahead during the early stages of the ‘hybrid era’.

That first iteration of the Mercedes powerunit, designated PU106, had a number of unique features, although the most eye-catching of those and which is still used now, was undoubtedly the split turbocharger arrangement.

This resulted in the compressor being housed on one end of the engine, whilst the turbine was mounted on the other end. This not only places the hot and cold side of the turbo at either end of the ICE, which comes with its own thermal and performance benefits, it also allows the MGU-H to occupy the space between the two sides of the turbo and within the Vee of the engine.

The layout can be considered an engineering feat in its own right, as with the MGU-H sat between the turbo, rather than being hung off the back of the engine block, like the arrangement that many of their rivals had adopted, there are additional forces that have to be accounted for.

In order to have the Turbocharger and MGU-H laid out in this manner, it also required the compressor and turbine to be unconventionally sized, with more of a pancake-style design used to fit everything into the box region.

This created a knock-on effect whereby other aspects of the ICE and its ancillaries had to be adjusted too, with the oil tank being offset to one side, whilst a liquid-to-air charge cooler was used rather than a more traditional n air-to-air ‘intercooler’ arrangement.

This came with the advantage of having the chargecooler housed in a void above the fuel cell, which also shortens the boost tract considerably.

And, whilst their rivals wrestled with the imbalance, of a radiator in one sidepod and intercooler in the other, Mercedes opted for a radiator for the chargecooler on one side of the car and another similarly sized one for cooling the ICE on the other side.

This provided a more balanced layout from a packaging, aerodynamics and weight distribution point of view and was aided further by the more compact, log-style exhaust manifold, that HPP in Brixworth supplied for the first iteration of their powerunit.

👉 Banned: The story behind F1’s only car with a 100% win record
👉 Brawn GP: The team that shouldn’t have existed – and still won it all

More to it than meets the eye

The W05 might have had the PU106 at its core but it was not a one trick pony, as whilst the powerunit and packaging clearly gave them an advantage over their rivals, the car also combined some interesting and unique design solutions too.

As you’d expect for this era of F1, the front wing was home to a number of complex cascade structures that sat above the flapped elements, in order to curate the outwash being generated here, something which was further enhanced by the design of their endplate and the diveplane hung from it.

The nose design for 2014’s cars had resulted in the emergence of some quite bizarre solutions, as the teams all wrestled with trying to maintain as much open height as possible, as they’d become accustomed to this freedom under the previous regulations.

Mercedes, by contrast, had come up with a more sensible solution, at least from an aesthetic point of view, with an inverted U-shaped nose tip used to overcome the new dimensional criteria inserted in the regulations.

The team made further changes during the season to improve the airflow’s passage, which required additional crash tests to be passed in order to prove that the nose would perform as expected in an accident even with the more complex shapes.

The designers had also come up with the handlebar-style solution on which to mount the camera pods, placing them in a more favourable position from an aerodynamic point of view.

Taking advantage of their placement and some of the regulations regarding the size and shape of the suspension fairings, Mercedes also introduced a conjoined lower wishbone (arrowed, right), narrowing the position between the two legs in order to turn it into one much larger aerodynamic fairing.

This helped to keep the airflow coming off the front wing in the right position and further improved the performance of the surfaces downstream.

Meanwhile, the steering arm (arrowed, left) had also been repositioned and placed inline with the upper wishbone for better airflow management, reducing any distractions to the airflow as it makes its way toward the sidepod inlet.

Beneath the chassis, Mercedes placed two prongs in the front lower corners, which was a clever way of shifting the turning vanes into a more forward position and allowed them to act on the airflow earlier.

It’s also a feature that was enhanced further during the season, as the team revised the nose design.

To reinforce these changes and take advantage of the space behind the turning vanes the team introduced the ‘Bat-Wing’. Mounted atop the ride height sensor, this wing shaped device altered the airflow’s flow direction further still, improving the link between one section of the car with the other.

It too evolved over time, with a revised mounting connecting it to the underside of the chassis used, whilst a slot was added to the winglet ahead of it too.

Bringing up the rear

On the lead up to the hybrid era, teams had used the exhaust in multiple ways to power aerodynamics, resulting in the FIA looking at ways in which to reframe the regulations in a way that would prevent the likes of the the blown diffuser and ‘Coanda’ exhaust solutions we’d seen for the last few years.

This led to the adoption of a single, centrally mounted exhaust outlet, with specific criteria over where the tailpipe could terminate, in order that its aerodynamic influence wasn’t as great.

But, never one to miss out on an opportunity to leverage an aerodynamic advantage from the exhaust gases, all of the teams ran Y150 winglet / monkey seat solutions that worked in conjunction with the given aerodynamic package.

This became an area where Mercedes employed a fair amount of their resources, with numerous monkey seat designs employed throughout the season depending on the load demands of the circuit being visited and the downforce level of the rear wing it was to be paired with.

The main design used by Mercedes saw layers of winglets utilised, with those closest to the exhaust and shaped accordingly also furnished with a heat resistant coating. The lower tail of the endplates were also shaped to alter the trajectory of the exhaust plume and improve the interaction of the various aerodynamic structures being generated at the rear of the car.

This was further enhanced by the design of the rear wing’s endplates, which featured contouring and angular cut outs in their lower extremities, whilst a ladder-style winglet array could also be found below and around the rear crash structure.

It’s all linked

The dominance of Mercedes was never about one silver bullet but that didn’t stop rival teams from trying to hobble their competitor, with one of the big stories of 2014 being the battle over FRIC, an interconnected system that hydraulically linked the front and rear suspension.

Mercedes were understood to have one of the most sophisticated versions of this system, albeit they were not the first to introduce it, having accrued the knowledge from personnel that had worked at other teams.

The FIA began fielding a number of questions regarding the system, which was also being used to stabilise the cars platform for aerodynamic purposes. Initially they responded with a line of technical directives to quell any doubts over the systems legality but by the British Grand Prix it had been decided that FRIC would be outlawed from 2015 onwards.

An admission that the system was now considered illegal prompted everyone to remove their systems immediately, as a post race protest could result in any points accrued being taken away.

Their rivals expected Mercedes to struggle the most without it but they didn’t, instead they went on to take 16 victories in a 19 race season. The advantage that the W05 had over the rest of the field was apparent, making it clear to see how it is one of the most dominant cars in the sports history and the catalyst for a lineage of machines that would propel Mercedes to multiple World Championships in the years that followed.