Mercedes says it is hopeful of getting a greater read on its W13, and its long-term potential, if it can ready new parts in time for next weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.
Mercedes has struggled to understand its W13 through the opening events of the 2022 season and holds only third in the championship, with just two podium finishes.
Neither George Russell nor Lewis Hamilton made it through to Q3 at Imola – ending Mercedes’ near-10-year streak – and while Russell profited from a strong first lap to claim fourth in the race, Hamilton was left languishing outside of the points.
“Well, it is obviously a bit of a cliché, but the reality is we can’t run the car where we designed it to be run,” explained Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
“We’re having to run higher ride heights and by running higher ride heights, it’s got less performance. Now, that might be true for almost every car on the grid. Lots of people are suffering with this problem and we know that lifting the car is a way of alleviating it.
“A lot of the work that is going on in Brackley has been to understand the phenomenon and whether we can actually control it, whether we can engineer it out of the car and is there an aerodynamic solution that we can apply to the car that will make this problem go away.
“Now, being realistic we think this will be something we approach in steps rather than one big moment where the whole thing vanishes, but we are seeing encouraging signs.
“We are hoping to bring parts to the car soon, maybe even Miami where we can hopefully see progress on this issue.”
Shovlin outlined that “there is an enormous amount of energy back here [at Brackley] going into that, but day by day we are moving forward, we are learning more about it.
“Hopefully, soon, maybe as soon as Miami, we can start to bring some parts to the car that will hopefully give us an indication on whether we are moving in the right direction.
“We are not expecting to solve this overnight, but if we can get a clue that we are going in the right direction, that we really got to the bottom of what is going on, then we will be quite pleased that we are just moving on the right path.”
Mercedes currently trails Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship by 47 points.
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