Evolutionary warfare

After two years under the same ruleset, Formula 1 enjoyed a slight shake-up of the regulations in a bid to undo some of the wrongs that the 2017 changes provided. In pursuit of pure performance, the 2017 formula created a byproduct of turgid racing, which F1’s in-house research team sought to redress this year. The jury is out on whether the changes worked; some drivers felt that following a car ahead was a little easier, while others didn’t notice any real difference. Regardless, what it did do was create new areas of development for the teams to exploit, captured by technical illustrator Giorgio Piola throughout the year.

Mercedes

Having won everything under the sun since the dawn of the turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes’ latest ruse was seemingly to lure everyone into a false sense of security in testing, then explode into action once points and prizes appeared on the table.

It wasn’t quite like that, of course. To give the definitive W10 more time in the windtunnel, Mercedes began its pre-season test programme with a beta car, aimed at making sure all of the onboard systems worked as expected and the internal components were reliable. It wasn’t until week two that Mercedes emerged with a full representation of its 2019 package.

Mercedes smoothed out the transition to the cape section on the nose, and also added to the complexity of the bargeboards, along with installing tighter sidepods to improve airflow to the