Did Mercedes miss the boat? 'It's how you interpret those rules'

Mercedes is satisfied with the first days of testing, but Ted Kravitz still sees little special about the new W13. Despite completely new regulations, the reporter at Sky Sports talks about a typical Mercedes car.

W13 is not very different

Mercedes' W13 was already shown to the public at the car presentation prior to the Barcelona test and a film day was also held at the Silverstone circuit. The silver car of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton looks sleek again but lacks the aerodynamic details that the RB18 showed in Barcelona.

''First of all, the [Mercedes] rear wing that's a double dip rear wing. Something we've seen before on various medium or low downforce packages for Mercedes. They've committed to this double dip rear wing, they're figuring out, with some probes, whether it's getting the high quality air flow they want,'' Kravitz told Sky Sports, although that is one of the few special points about the W13. 

Mercedes misses an opportunity

''The side pods look very familiar from the Mercedes family of side pods that we've seen on various Silver Arrows over the years. A familiar car even with such a regulation change. Look at the front of the nose, that's joined up with the front wing mainplane. That's not the way teams like McLaren, Aston Martin and even Red Bull have gone where they've separated it and seen a bit of a loophole in the rules. The front wing need to be attached to the nose, but nothing to say it needs to be attached to the front wing mainplane. It's looking at the rules and interpretation,'' Kravitz says.

Mercedes seems to have missed the boat in that respect compared to the competition, but it is still very early. In Bahrain, the teams will already come up with a completely different car, and the cars would also be easier to copy this year. So things that Mercedes sees in the competition now could already be on the car in Bahrain.