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Mercedes' hydraulic suspension system has gained further attention recently, with sections of the German motorsport press suggesting Formula 1's technical working group will discuss the high mounting of the heave unit on the W07's chassis.

It was, in fact, Renault that pioneered the reintroduction of hydraulic linked suspension a few seasons back, which led Mercedes to adopt the system and the term FRIC (front and rear inter-connected) being applied to such solutions.

FRIC was banned ahead of the German Grand Prix in July 2014, but rather than dispense with hydraulics linking the suspension front to rear, teams instead linked each end of the suspension to spring units mounted in the sidepod.

The aim of these is to use hydraulics to act on a separate spring as the suspension compresses from braking or aero loads.

This helps control ride height, particularly with the front splitter, which is the limitation in getting a steep raked set-up. If front ride height drops too low the splitter will hit the track and wear the plank, leading to legality issues.

Simply stopping suspension travel at that point or running very stiff front springs will lead to other handling problems.

Having a third spring in the sidepod has two key advantages. Firstly, space - a large gas (nitrogen) spring with its accumulators and valves cannot be mounted inside the nose of the car.

Secondly, the ability to tailor a spring set-up with hydraulics allows some clever switching to be achieved, to alter spring rate according to load, i.e. G-loads from braking or cornering.

Mercedes and most teams have run a remote hydraulically operated spring for the front and/or rear suspension since 2014.

These systems are independent front to rear, and with the passive valving the system can achieve some near active-suspension-like properties.

As this sort of system is devoid of ECUs, Moog valves and pumps it is totally passive and therefore legal.

It is possible to control both pitch and roll with these systems, but to my knowledge only heave is generally controlled, although there is one team I believe also has roll control.

Mercedes has a highly visible and complex system, but not one that is far in advance of its rivals, and nor is this a silver bullet in terms of car performance.

The high mounting of the unit (above) is a simple mechanical solution - the higher the unit and its rockers are mounted, the better the working angle of the pushrods.

Although the unit sits above the chassis, it is an unsprung part of the chassis and exempt from the maximum height rules applying to the nose of the monocoque.

However, this stepped area at the front of the tub is under review by the TWG.

This is not a response to the Mercedes design, which has been visible all season long, but rather a long-held intention to make the shape a smoother transition from front bulkhead to the raised chassis.

There is no issue with the Mercedes mounting position, which is extreme but not too far from other teams' implementation of designs for front suspension.

LAST ROLL OF THE DICE FOR F1 UPDATES

Singapore is the first of the end-of-season flyaway races. As a result it tends to be the last race where Formula 1 teams introduce substantial new parts.

However, most teams have already switched resources to next year's cars, because the technical regulations are changing substantially.

So this year's last roll of the dice is a little smaller in scale than otherwise might be the case.

McLaren continues its policy of bringing new parts to almost every race, and Haas has an upgrade that has been in the pipeline for a while but has taken longer to produce than perhaps it would for established teams.

Technical development for F1 2016 is winding down, but the particular demands of Singapore necessitate some significant tweaks to get car set-up right.

It's a tight track and the cars run in high ambient temperatures. This requires maximum downforce, maximum engine cooling and lots of brake cooling, which creates a conundrum around the size of air intakes, trading off cooling efficiency against aerodynamic efficiency.

In the race, brake wear is likely to be an issue. This is not because any individual braking demands for the corners are particularly high, but because the sheer frequency of the braking phases means the brake temperatures escalate and are difficult to keep under control.

FERRARI'S DILEMMA

Torn between a lack of competitiveness versus Red Bull and Mercedes this year, while also needing to prepare for 2017, Ferrari hasn't been able to develop a new front wing package but it has made some tweaks for this race.

With Singapore demanding maximum downforce from the flap sections, it risks airflow separation under the steep wing profiles.

To keep the airflow in touch with the wing's undersurface, Ferrari has added a Mercedes-style serrated edge to the flap.

These teeth break up the smooth airflow into a turbulent flow, which keeps the transition from one wing element to the other much cleaner, preventing separation from adverse pressure gradient.

McLAREN'S RELENTLESS MARCH

Having confirmed it will develop the MP4-31 until the end of the season, McLaren brought yet more front and rear wing updates to Marina Bay.

On the front wing, the slot count has increased, with the inboard tips getting long slots and the curved outer wing section gaining a new slot too.

This brings the inboard element count to seven and the outer span now numbers eight elements plus four cascade profiles!

At the rear, the wing endplate follows Toro Rosso's solution of the louvres being open ended.

These louvres vent high-pressure air to the wing tip, to prevent vapour trail-like vortices forming and creating drag.

The open-fronted design improves flow around the endplate and through the louvres.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER FOR HAAS

Haas has now diverted resources to its 2017 car after a strong start to the season, but finished designing this '16 update package two months ago. Finally it's ready, and it features a new front wing cascade set-up.

Retaining the same basic front wing, the cascades now feature more vertical vanes, and the new arrangement involves four vertical elements to turn the airflow around the car.

Also there were tweaks to the floor and rear wing.

MANOR MAKING AERO PROGRESS

Although it has been working on its 2017 car since January, Manor has always retained a team to work on its '16 car.

This resulted in a package of updates for Singapore, with revisions to the front wing, bargeboards, floor, and rear wing.

Changes to the front wing affect the endplate area. The previously flat-sided endplate vane now pinches in where it joins the cascade winglet. This winglet also gains a new pair of vertical vanes.

Along with this there are a number of other detail changes to the endplate, the strake fitted to it and the footplate.

Matched to this is a new bargeboard, with three vertical slots designed to set off vortices to control the airflow around the sidepod.

This shows the whole car set-up is becoming more complex and demonstrates progress made by the team's aero department, though it clearly still has a long way to go to catch up to other teams on the grid on high-downforce tracks.