Mercedes consider their automobile’s bouncing drawback returned on the Belgian Grand Prix due to how they set it up, and never as a result of newest improve they launched.
Each drivers complained the W14 bounced excessively through the race at Spa-Francorchamps.
“We undoubtedly had an quantity of bouncing this weekend,” chief technical officer Mike Elliott admitted in a video issued by the group. “Each drivers had been telling us that and we will see it within the knowledge.
“We may additionally see bouncing on the opposite vehicles. I feel a few of it’s the nature of the circuit at Spa, in reality, we had enormous quantities of bouncing final 12 months, as did most groups.
“When it comes to efficiency, it undoubtedly affected the efficiency of the automobile as a result of it impacts the drivers’ skill to extract the utmost grip from the automobile. It impacts their stability and it impacts their skill to get their braking factors, et cetera proper. In order that’s undoubtedly one thing we’ll be engaged on for the long run.”
Mercedes launched the most recent improve for his or her automobile final weekend, together with modifications to their flooring and sidepods. Nevertheless the group suspects it was not this however the automobile’s set-up which brought on their bouncing drawback. Because the Belgian Grand Prix was a dash race weekend, they solely had an hour of apply during which to arrange their vehicles, and rain additional compromised their efforts.
“The query we have to ask ourselves is how a lot of it’s simply the circuit we had been at in Spa and the way a lot is it to be present in set-up?” mentioned Elliott. “As a result of clearly it was a moist race weekend, a weekend the place we have now no dry operating up till the purpose we had been really racing.
“We’ll additionally take a extremely good take a look at the improve equipment and ensure we’ve not launched bouncing with that. However in the intervening time our perception is it’s in all probability a results of set-up or the circuit itself.”
Whereas Lewis Hamilton certified third on the grid for the race, he wasn’t in a position to acquire locations within the race and completed behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Elliott admitted the automobile didn’t carry out in addition to anticipated within the grand prix.
“That’s an uncommon factor as a result of typically we’ve obtained good tyre degradation and customarily we do a lot better within the races than we do in qualifying,” he defined.
“While you take a look at this weekend as an entire, the blended situations and the drying tracks that we had meant that qualifying was such that the tempo was altering lap to lap because the observe dried up. The tyres you had been operating on had been altering session to session in order that was in all probability extra about what the driving force can get out of the automobile than attending to that form of excellent level on the finish of qualifying. Each our drivers did a superb job to soundly navigate by means of the weekend and put in good laps after they wanted them.
“When it comes to the race tempo, I feel that’s all about degradation and to get the degradation you need, you’ve obtained to have the stability in precisely the place you need it. For us this weekend, we weren’t there, and I feel that’s only a results of not having dry laps in apply, not having sufficient alternative to get the set-up of the automobile simply the place you need it and comparatively, we ended up with a automobile that wasn’t fairly as properly balanced as possibly a few of our opponents had been.
“Consequently we had extra tyre degradation and subsequently weren’t actually in a position to extract the race tempo that we want to have seen.”
2023 Belgian Grand Prix
Browse all 2023 Belgian Grand Prix articles
