Mercedes admit to pushing Lewis Hamilton’s Baku setup ‘too far’
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Lewis Hamilton had a very uncomfortable weekend in Baku.
On paper, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had a good weekend. George Russell and he finished 3rd and 4th, respectively. The car looked to have a slightly better pace than in Monaco, perhaps slightly closer to their performance in Spain. However, this assumption hides some important circumstances.
While their pace was better in Spain, it was due to Charles Leclerc’s retirement at the front that they were able to make their way into the podium places. Of course, it is not possible that without colliding at the start that Hamilton may have finished ahead, perhaps in 4th or in the podium places himself.
However, the car did not look nearly as good in Monaco. While Toto Wolff has said that Mercedes now understand the reason for the porpoising, the car was still bouncing all over. This was even worse in Baku, amplified by the track’s bumpy and coarse track quality, and the car’s naturally stiff suspension.
On Friday, Hamilton had complained of back pain, saying that the bouncing had left him ‘sore’. During the race, he exclaimed over the radio: “Argh, my back is killing me!” and after the race, the seven-time world champion looked visibly in pain. So a perhaps good weekend for the team, with a solid haul of points, was more of a nightmare for Lewis Hamilton.
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James Vowles: “We simply can’t do that again.”
It is understood at Mercedes that the bouncing and the porpoising are separate issues. They have mostly gotten on top of the porpoising, but the bouncing has plagued them the last two weekends. To extract performance from the car, the team run the car at the lowest possible, but due to the stiff suspension, this makes for a very bumpy ride.
Talking in Mercedes’ race debrief on their official YouTube channel, Mercedes’ chief strategist James Vowles lauded Lewis Hamilton for his resilience and performance shown during the race but admitted that the team had made some rather extreme choices with the setup.
“He’s an elite athlete that will push the bounds of endurance of himself and the car and that’s what Formula 1 drivers do, that’s what makes them exceptional. On this occasion, though we pushed the package and our drivers too far, we are putting them into significant discomfort and we simply can’t do that again.”
He added that Mercedes will make sure that a weekend like this does not happen again: “And we have a responsibility now to make sure that this doesn’t carry on.”
Explaining the difference between the porpoising and bouncing, Vowles said:
“I’m confident we’ve made a step forward in terms of porpoising but we very clearly do have bouncing and to the outside, it looks almost identical, but there is a subtle difference between the two.”
The stiff suspension. combined with the very low floor setup and bumpy track quality in the last two circuits is what is creating the bouncing. “What is happening now is that the car is lower, as a result of fixing the first issue, but now hitting the deck quite hard and that’s creating the bouncing that you see at the moment.” This is understood to be worse on street circuits, as they tend to have worse track quality.
Vowles said that it is possible that they will see performance variation track by track as the season goes on, and while it was clear that they have a long way to go, he is hopeful that they will be fighting at the front once again sometime this season.
Also Read: “He represents Mercedes,” Toto Wolff apologizes to Lewis Hamilton after a pain-filled race at Baku.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)