I find it interesting that before the car has seen any road surface the drivers say it feels good in the sim so we have a good car.Anthony Davidson (is this the same Anthony Davidson Sky F1 pundit?) has been driving the W15 Mercedes in the sim and he says it feels like Mercedes have a real F1 car at their disposal for the first time in 2 years.
Also Toto has said to "Watch this space" because they have got some new ideas to speed up pit stops with wheel locking mechanisms and axle materials.
So,it`s not just the lap times they are aiming to reduce.
Anyway the simulator is one thing,but nobody really knows how the W15 will perform until testing.
This surely based on the data that was generated from the computer systems that told the designers it would be good. i.e the design models predict a certain characteristic, the wind tunnel model predicts it will be good etc.
Just look at the zero pod concept - their models thought that would be good!!!
They can't correlate the new design, the models and the sim until the car has hit the track, can they?
That said I do hope it's a good car this year and we can have some racing at the front.