Explained: Mercedes’ new floor and the impact they hope it will have in Miami

The first part of Mercedes’ significant upgrade package has been introduced at this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.

Headlining their upgrades for the event is a brand new floor.

Listed in the FIA document as “changes to the floor roof volume and floor edge detail” Mercedes are hopeful their new floor increases more load but also to improve airflow to the rear of the car.

Mercedes are enduring their worst start to a campaign since 2011, with George Russell’s P5 in Bahrain their best result so far.

Since the start of this set of regulations, Mercedes have struggled to get to grips with the airflow around the floor.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin is hopeful the addition of the floor gives the team a notable step in terms of improving the car’s handling.

"This is mainly just general development," Shovlin said. "We'd originally planned to bring this to Imola, which also has some revisions around the rear wing and beam wing area.

"But we've done a good job to pull it forward and managed to get two here. We've got one on each car, which is a reasonable step. We've had the same car since the start of the season more or less, so it's good that we can start to bring some more performance.

"Over the next four or five races, there are other developments that we're looking at to try and get the car handling a bit more consistently, and a bit less tricky to work with. But that's all coming in the next few [races].

"We are just behind on development, which is one of the areas we need to improve. But also just getting the car to be a bit more versatile across a range of tracks will be a very important focus for us."

Giving his view on the upgrades, Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz commented: "We do have some more upgrades on the W15.

"They are looking for more downforce from a new floor. They also have new cooling louvres like the McLaren for the local conditions here in Miami.

"Significantly, they also have a new front wing. It reduces the front-wing downforce load and that is allowing them to run a lower-downforce rear wing, which is especially important on this Miami circuit and its long straights."