Mercedes isn't there yet: "In Monaco, the old gap was back"
- GPblog.com
After a number of disappointing results, Mercedes seemed to have taken a big step forward in Barcelona, but engineers from the team admit that the result there was not very representative.
That might explain why the German racing stable suddenly found itself in a worse position again in Monaco. "We always did well in Barcelona. Therefore, our good form there was not so representative," say engineers from the team according to Auto, Motor und Sport.
Did Barcelona give a distorted view of the W13?
The team has clearly made strides in terms of porpoising, but according to the engineers, the performance in Barcelona made the W13 look better than it actually is. "In Monaco, the old gap was back," they add.
The weakness of the W13 at the moment is said to be the small window for finding the right tuning. The car can only show its qualities when it is tuned low, but that was impossible due to the heavy bouncing.
The new floor should get rid of porpoising as seen in Barcelona, but that weekend possibly gave a distorted picture as the problem is less likely to occur at that circuit. It is therefore possible that Mercedes will only be able to draw conclusions in Baku.
Mercedes is not there yet
The engineers have not yet found the key to making the aerodynamics work reliably, while that is of great importance in the next two weekends: "Baku and Montreal ask the same as Monte Carlo. The only difference is that you have longer straights."
The team is therefore not convinced that it has everything in place to successfully get through the next two races, but expects to be up front again at Silverstone.