Mike Elliot explains Mercedes’ twofold plan: “One is the normal upgrade path and the other one is fixing the issues.”
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The Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team have had a really tough start to the year, where the seven time World Champion, Lewis Hamilton is working really hard to score even a single podium, and has managed to score only one, that too in Bahrain after both the Red Bulls retired in the final stages of the race.
Mercedes have been trying every bit of upgrade they can to make the car perform better, but Lewis Hamilton has only been struggling.
Watch: The F1 Tech Loophole Giving Mercedes Hope For 2022
Mercedes’ main problem is associated with the porpoising, or the bouncing of the car, which a few teams faced on the grid during testing. This makes the cars bounce up and down on high speeds, wobbling the drivers’ heads, and making the car extremely hard to drive. Of all the teams, Mercedes are the one who are suffering from this the most.
After the Miami GP, where we saw Mercedes bringing in new front wing for their cars, the team’s technical director, Mike Elliot has revealed that the normal upgrade path which they follow would be different from the one they would actually follow to end the cars’ porpoising struggles.
Also read: Mercedes on Lewis Hamilton’s challenging start: “Hopefully it balances up over the season.”
“We gathered a lot of data,” Elliot speaks about gathering information about the problems of the W13.
Post Miami GP, Mike Elliot said that the changed front wings brought them the performance they wanted, as we saw Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finishing much better than they did previously.
Elliot also pointed out that they “collected a lot of data” for the improvement of the car and the problems.
“The experiments we were doing on track trying to understand the bouncing, we gathered a lot of data, we gathered a lot of data on Friday when we had strong performance and we gathered data through the race and as always, the engineers are pouring through that gaining understanding,” added Elliot, as stated by GPFans.
Mercedes accept that they are somewhat “back” in upgrading their car, and it would take a lot of information and work to work on the cars and primarily the porpoising problems, but they would get rid of it.
Currently, Mercedes stand 3rd in the constructors’ championship with 95 points, followed up by McLaren with 46 points.
Also read: “We are happy to fight them,” Alfa Romeo following an intense battle with Mercedes in Miami
Also read: “The FIA must keep an eye,” Mercedes and Alpine back Red Bull against suspicious floor of the F1-75
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Gunaditya Tripathi
(274 Articles Published)