He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value.

Since he came from that era where ground effects played a role in F1 he probably focused on the bottom of the car this year (floor) hence they had less issues with bouncing than other teams.

You will notice he attends most races - he sits on the pitwall.

> He does not work on the entire car anymore - it is too much work - think he provides overall direction to be followed (high rake/low rake) and then concentrates on the areas he can add value.

This has been the way it goes for a long time now. The engineering teams that work on f1 cars are huge (though less so now with the cost caps that came in to effect this season) so no one knows every aspect of the car in full detail. Same as with any large engineering project really.

What someone like Newey brings to the team is working out how the whole thing fits together, identifying the most productive areas of the car to work on (to find more speed) and troubleshooting issues with the car that come up through the season.

Pitwall is all for show ... Team boss Toto Wolff does not sit on the pit wall, instead preferring a seat in the garage at the central console overseeing operations

Toto Wolff is also not an engineering or race oriented team boss, he's a finance guy. He lets the engineers and race experts do their thing while he does his thing.

I've no doubt the reason he is there is because he enjoys being at the races, not because of how it looks.

F1 sometimes introduces new package of rules which totally invalidates last years design - this year they switched to 18" wheels from 13" with brake covers and also allowed ground areo effects to be used.

Add new tyre compounds to the mix as well.

Merc is not so dominant this years compared to last year because they got it wrong for their 2022 car while Red Bull and Ferrari was out of the gate competitive.