Allison secretive about floor: 'We don't want them to try similar things'

Mercedes have shown the W12 to the world for the first time in its own factory, but the full car is not yet visible. The team is still secretive about its new floor concept and James Allison explains why.

We won't see the floor until Bahrain

The W12, like more cars in 2021, looks a lot like its 2020 predecessor. But there are some differences. The biggest difference from 2020 is the floor, but the team doesn't want to give too much away about that just yet.

"If you look at the side pod of the car, you can see a very nice butch on the engine cover that hides some work from HPP. They have put a lot of horsepower into the engine for this year. The part we won't show you is at the edge of the floor. That part has had the most to do with the new rules. That's where they tried to take performance away from the car by changing the floor regulations," Allison said during the presentation on YouTube.

Secrecy for the competitor

"There are a lot of aerodynamic details there that we don't want to show the world yet. Not because they are not there, but because we don't want our competitors to see them yet. We don't want them to try similar things in their wind tunnels. It gives us a few more weeks", concludes Allison.