It took months at a time to see Mercedes come out of the quicksand and get back to its level. After GPs of ups and downs, only towards Zandvoort did the Brackley team understand the nature of its problems, finding continuity in terms of performance, but another key GP was undoubtedly Baku. In Azerbaijan the W13 hit rock bottom (it is appropriate to say) with the porpoisingbouncing at over 300 km/h on the long straights, and the images of Lewis Hamilton with back pain reached the FIA, which decided to intervene with a directive ad hocthe TD039, which has undoubtedly helped Mercedes to solve the problems.
In that GP George Russell obtained the third podium of the season, almost a miracle considering the difficulties of his team. The Briton retraced the difficulties of the beginning of the year: “I immediately understood that the car was not at the level that Mercedes are capable of. But I also knew that we were facing a big regulation change. And by the end of the fair, everyone was going slower. Even Red Bull this season are maybe two seconds slower than 2021. They are not fast in terms of pure pace, but very, very fast compared to everyone else“, these are his words to Auto Motor und Sport. “At first I didn’t give too much weight to it, because I wanted to wait to see what Ferrari and Red Bull did. But then, of course, when you come back to the pits, you see the lap times and they’re a second ahead, you know right away that something is wrong“.
“The car was very, very difficult to drive. Of course, after three years at Williams, that wasn’t an easy car to drive either. So the transition for me was pretty similar. Actually, in terms of pure performance, the pace of the Williams I drove in previous years was probably similar to what I experienced last year with the Mercedes. But we knew when the car was better or when the conditions suited us a little more: in those cases the car transformed completely“, continued the Briton. “At other times it was not pleasant to drive. We were being porpoised, I think the worst time was in Azerbaijan. I was doing 330 in the first corner and I couldn’t see the braking points well. Usually you look at the signs to decide where to brake. But everything was a bit blurry. Also, when braking, the car kept bouncing and the tires slipped. It wasn’t quite what you’re used to in a Formula 1 car“.
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