FRIC ban forced Mercedes changes for 2015
Mercedes' executive director Paddy Lowe says the mid-season ban of the FRIC suspension forced the team to 'take a fresh look' when designing the new W06.
FRIC (Front and Rear interconnected) suspension was outlawed ahead of the German Grand Prix - round 10 of the season - last year, a move that affected teams but didn't prompt a significant change in the order of hierarchy, with Mercedes maintaining its dominant advantage to the end of 2014.
Nonetheless, Lowe admits the 'out of the blue' banning caught Mercedes by surprise and having built the all-conquering W05 around the system, it was forced to make important changes to its design philosophy for 2015 with the W06.
"FRIC was banned in the middle of last year, out of the blue really, so we had to react as best we could around it," Lowe said. "The 2014 car was based around FRIC and it was central to the suspension concept. So with FRIC illegal in 2015 we took a fresh look for the 2015 car which has been a big topic but there was plenty of time to react to it between Hockenheim and now.
"This car does have some changes under the skin in terms of suspension and optimised weight but we have tried to recover the advantages we had with the FRIC system but without the front to rear inter-linkage which was ruled out."
