“The car is undriveable in the same way it was before, you can see it from the bounces on the straight”. A single sentence from Toto Wolff is enough to perfectly summarize the moment of Mercedes. The Team Principal of the reigning world champions has indicated porpoising as the source of most of the problems of the W13, without sparing even decisive criticisms: “Sometimes I wonder how the two riders manage to keep it on track. Lewis deserves better from us, but we are a team and we must all do our best to build a car that can fight for the top positions ”.
Aerodynamic rebound, also known as porpoising, is a phenomenon that has returned to Formula 1 with the new aerodynamic philosophy of the cars, more focused on the generation of load from the underbody. The progressive increase of the vertical thrust at high speeds brings the bottom to approach the ground, progressively accelerating the air flow up to a critical condition in which it detaches from the surfaces, generating a stall condition. The car thus loses aerodynamic load, rising and triggering the entire cycle again, causing the car to bounce. At Mercedes they declare that the phenomenon is much more complex than what has just been described, an opinion however not shared by some rival technicians, suggesting how critical and anomalous the situation at home of the world champions can be.
Like Mercedes, Ferrari and Haas also show conspicuous oscillations in the straight line, but in the case of the W13 these are triggered starting from lower speeds, forcing compromise set-up choices to limit the phenomenon, such as an increase in height from the ground and suspension stiffness modifications. However, all this leads to using the car in conditions other than those for which it was designed, thus sacrificing much of its potential: “I think the aspect of our car that overshadows everything else is that it has a lot more porpoising than the others”explains Wolff. “Because of the rebounds, we can’t keep it as low as we would like and this has huge implications for set-up, tire grip and everything else. If we can figure it out, we will be able to extract a lot more potential from the machine, while otherwise there would be a decidedly more conventional development path that we have not yet undertaken. I want us to take the time to decide wisely ”.
The number one of the Stella team reiterated that the resolution of porpoising would help bring the W13 back to less compromising set-up adjustments, significantly benefiting overall performance: “We are convinced that the concepts we have given to the car will allow us to maintain a very low ground clearance, but so far we have not been able to do so due to porpoising. If we could figure it out, there would be a considerable gain in lap time that we could achieveotherwise we should think of another idea ”. However, Toto Wolff denied the rumors that Mercedes is currently limited in development by the budget cap after the new bellies brought in the second pre-season test session: “The changes introduced in Bahrain have not yet impacted much on the budget cap, because we have not changed the aerodynamic concept of the car. We kept the car body tight, but if we had to do something different, it could have a weight on the spending roof ”.
The Austrian manager then went on to analyze the race of his drivers on the banks of the Santerno: “During the pit stop we had a failure in Russell’s front wing pitch adjustment mechanism, so we couldn’t adjust it as needed for his second stint and that probably cost him two tenths a lap, but George has struggled with understeer brilliantly. Once again, he is going beyond the competitiveness of the car ”. Wolff has spared no praise on the work done so far by the young Englishman: “I am impressed how he has integrated into the team and how professionally and analytically he helps to take stock of the situation. One of the few positive notes of this weekend is that both George and Lewis work together, without any friction. On the contrary, they are very productive and positive for the team. I couldn’t be happier with our driver line-up. We have perhaps two of the three best drivers and they deserve a car that allows them to fight up front ”.
Lewis Hamilton finished detached from his teammate, remaining excluded from the points zone. However, the difference in performance between the two Mercedes drivers at Imola was not caused by set-up discrepancies: “No, there were no big differences between George and Lewis’ cars. The problem is that when there is a train of cars with the DRS, such as the one in which Lewis found himself, it is almost impossible to overtake. There is only one DRS zone and if you don’t have straight speed, you can’t pass. I think they are both doing their best, going beyond the potential of the car. We saw it with George, who had a good start and drove the car very well. Lewis, on the other hand, was stuck behind ”. Wolff then reiterated the lack of responsibility on the part of the world champion in the recent results: “We have to protect him. It is not at its minimum, it is the car that is. He is a seven-time world champion. He is the best driver in the world and he doesn’t have a car that allows him to express himself ”.
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