“There’s no bouncing,” Toto Wolff feels the Mercedes W14’s pre-season testing performance is a ‘good starting point’ for 2023

For the first half of the 2022 season, Mercedes seemed to have an Achilles’ heel: Porpoising, and bouncing. They weren’t the only ones to have this ‘issue’, of course, with the return of ground effect technology, all teams experienced it to varying degrees. Ferrari, who won the opening race of the season, also did, but it did not seem to take any toll on their performance. This wasn’t the case for Mercedes, and the porpoising gave them no end of trouble.

Porpoising and bouncing were two different phenomena, of course. With an upgrade package brought in at the Spanish Grand Prix, the worst of the porpoising seemed to have gone. However, the bouncing remained, and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had a torrid time of it in Azerbaijan. After the Grand Prix, the FIA decided to bring in a technical directive to limit porpoising/bouncing and adverse health effects for drivers. This came into effect after the summer break.

After the summer break, they didn’t have a significant amount of bouncing or porpoising. Their performances seemed to get better after the arrival of the TD39. But still, the return of these issues would be in the back of their minds going into the 2023 F1 season. There’s good news on this front, as they don’t seem to have experienced a lot of porpoising, neither in their Silverstone shakedown or during pre-season testing.

Speaking after the end of the first session on Day 1, Toto Wolff said: “George [Russell] was generally happy with the car. It seems to be balanced in the right way. There’s no bouncing, which is good news, apart from the big bump at the end of the straight. [It’s] a good starting point – we’re gathering a lot of data because it’s important to correlate, obviously after last year, and trying different things – so a productive first morning.” as per Sky Sports.

Read More: Mercedes are concerned about the ‘limited’ F1 pre-season testing time

Toto Wolff: Mercedes W14 ‘very different’ from 2022 car in pre-season testing

Last season, Formula 1 teams took part in two separate pre-season tests. The first of these was at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the venue of the Spanish Grand Prix. The second was held at the Bahrain International Circuit, which is also the venue of the ongoing pre-season testing. At last year’s tests in Spain, Mercedes hadn’t thought that porpoising would become such a major issue. But during the subsequent Bahrain test, it become a whole new beast.

Toto Wolff feels the car has behaved very differently (yet) than it did in last year’s pre-season testing. He said: “We knew we were in trouble because the car was just bouncing around and we really weren’t able to drive it correctly, so that is very different. I think we have a solid base now to work from and try to optimise the car, which we haven’t done yet. It’s really just finding out how the aerodynamics could cause real performance hindrance like last year with the bouncing.”

This was just after the first (half) day of testing, of course. Mercedes will find out a lot more about their car during the next two days. The fans, however, will have to wait till qualifying for a clearer picture of the possible running order in Bahrain. The Silver Arrows have earlier acknowledged that they are ‘starting behind’ with the 2023 car, but there’s still potential for a three-way title fight.

In case you missed it:

• Mercedes are concerned about the ‘limited’ F1 pre-season testing time
• Toto Wolff points out how Mercedes may have an advantage over F1 top dogs Red Bull in 2023

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