[wheelguy]

The new steering mechanism appeared to alter the alignment of the front wheels.

BARCELONA: Mercedes brought intrigue to Formula One testing on Thursday with television images showing Lewis Hamilton moving his car's steering wheel forwards and backwards as he drove.

The mechanism appeared to alter the alignment of the front wheels, with the six-times world champion pulling the wheel towards him on the straights and pushing it back as he approached corners.

Technical director James Allison was coy about the details of a system he said was known within the team as DAS (Dual-Axis Steering).

"It's novel idea," he told reporters at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya. "It just introduces an extra dimension to the steering for the driver that we hope will be useful during the year.

"Precisely how we use it, and why we use it, that's something we prefer to keep to ourselves."

Interesting development.

Source

[F150]

Yes, saw this yesterday. When the steering column is pulled towards the driver, the toe on the front wheels is reduced, there by allowing the car to cool down the inner edge of the tyres. Everyone in the field is shocked, but Mercedes should be appreciated for innovating to solve the tyres blistering problem.

[gthang]

From what I understood, F1 cars always had a toe-in stance and the new "Dual axis steering" allows for a flat front in the straights. Would have to be a hell of a driver to be able to handle the g's and not let it transfer to the wheel position. Looking forward to it in action in a race.

Would be interesting to see how it's done. Wonder if others will adopt or cry foul till it's banned.

Cheers

[ds.raikkonen]

Wonder what happened to downforce fans, self levelling suspension, mass dampers, double diffusers etc?

Except for really path breaking innovations like ground effect etc, innovations tend to get banned in F1. Pretty sure a platoon of lawyers in each team would be looking into this.

This is the reason the WEC is so much better in terms of giving teams plenty of room to innovate. Still love F1 though!

[arvindmanju]

More news on this topic from Reuters
Mercedes steering wheel to be outlawed after this season

[ds.raikkonen]

Originally Posted by arvindmanju

Mercedes steering wheel to be outlawed after this season

Reminds me of the active suspension era during the 1990s when Williams gave McLaren the thrashing of their lives, not because they had the better drivers, but because they had a car which was almost 1.5-2 sec quicker than others! Senna just could not keep with with either Mansell in 1992 or Prost in 1993.

Every other team copied it in the '93 season only for it to get banned in '94 citing cost related problems by the FIA.