Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that its Formula 1 results since the summer break have been impacted by its car being more “on the edge.”
The German manufacturer had gone into the shutdown period buoyed by three victories in four races – with George Russell having triumphed in Austria and Lewis Hamilton adding wins in Britain and Belgium.
But since F1 returned to action in the Netherlands, Mercedes has had a much harder time – with its best result being a fifth place for Hamilton at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
The team does not fully understand why things have been more difficult in recent weeks, but is aware that the characteristics of its W15 do appear to have changed.
“I think we are able to extract a single lap, which is in principle good news,” explained Wolff. “But then the balance isn’t in a way good enough to keep the tyres happy for a race.
“That has been the topic since Zandvoort. It has been more on the edge, more difficult to find the right balance.”
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
One possible cause of the problem could be related to the new floor that it introduced at the Belgian GP, but was abandoned that weekend because of doubts over it.
The squad has continued to analyse it during the Zandvoort and Monza weekends, and is convinced that it is providing the extra downforce hoped for.
However, it is not yet sure if the new design has contributed to the W15 having a less ideal balance, which is making Russell and Hamilton less comfortable in the car.
Speaking in the team’s regular post-weekend video debrief, Mercedes head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin said there remained some question marks about the floor.
“Over the last three races, we’ve done various compares of the packages and principally comparing the floor,” he said. “What we are confident in is that it’s generating the load that we expect.
“The more difficult question that we need to answer is: is there anything subtle in the handling characteristics that this package might be doing that we haven’t anticipated?”
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Shovlin said that finding an answer on the situation is not straightforward, because car balance is never consistent on different tracks.
“It’s quite difficult to assess, because the car will perform differently track-to-track, some tracks it’s been working very well. Other circuits we’ve struggled with the balance of the car regardless of the aerodynamic spec.
“It may well be that’s just the normal variation from track-to-track, but that’s what we’re going to be looking at over the next few days. On top of that there are other updates that we’re bringing into the system.
“There’s quite a lot for us to consider, but we do have a lot of data now, and we can go off and use the next few days to learn what we can from that.”
