Mercedes are second in the F1 constructors' championship with 10 rounds remaining, but missed out on a podium spot in the last event before the summer break; Lewis Hamilton and George Russell complained of porpoising in 2022 and there were signs the bouncing effect returned at Spa
Monday 7 August 2023 07:19, UK
Mercedes believe the return of bouncing to their car at the Belgian Grand Prix was a result of track characteristics and setup rather than the upgrades they brought to the W14.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell both complained during the race that the bouncing issues which plagued their 2022 campaign had reappeared in significant fashion at Spa-Francorchamps.
Despite still being a long way off the pace of Red Bull's dominant RB19, Mercedes appeared to make progress with a series of upgrades introduced in the run-up to Formula 1's summer break.
Mercedes had no opportunity to do dry running with the updated parts in the one practice session provided in a Sprint weekend, and therefore had to make something of a gamble with their setup choice for Friday afternoon's qualifying session, which they were then stuck with for the remainder of the weekend.
"We definitely had an amount of bouncing [last] weekend, both drivers were telling us that and we could see it in the data," Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott said.
"We could also see an amount of bouncing on the other cars and I think some of it is the nature of the circuit at Spa and in fact we had huge amounts of bouncing last year as did most teams.
"In terms of the performance, it definitely affects the performance of the cars because it affects the drivers' ability to extract the maximum grip from the car, it affects their balance and it affects their ability to get their braking points right. So that is something we will be working on for the future.
"The question we need to ask ourselves is, how much of it is just the circuit we were at in Spa and how much is to be found in setup because obviously it was a wet race weekend, a weekend where we had no dry running up until the point we were actually racing.
"We will also take a really good look at the upgrade kit and make sure that we've not introduced bouncing with that but at the moment our belief is it is probably a result of setup or the circuit itself."
Despite their bouncing concerns, Mercedes have opened up a 51-point advantage over Aston Martin in the race to be best of the rest behind Red Bull, while Hamilton has closed to within a point of third-placed Fernando Alonso in the drivers' standings.
With Red Bull's Max Verstappen having opened up a 125-point over team-mate Sergio Perez to close in on a third successive drivers' title, the most impactful element of the remainder of the campaign would appear to be making advances that can help in 2024.
Mercedes' revamp of their W14 is expected to go even further with their next model, but the data they gain between now and the end of the season could be crucial in ensuring they are able to get back to competing with Red Bull.
"In terms of what we can expect from the second half of the season we need to keep pushing," Elliott said.
"We need to keep pushing because we want to learn more about this car so we can take that into the winter and into the development of next year's car but also we want that fight for second in the championship so we will keep bringing some upgrades to the car, keep fighting for that second position."
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch GP and all sessions will be live on Sky Sports F1 from August 25-27. Stream Sky Sports F1 and more with NOW for £26 a month for 12 months.
