F1 News
Fresh concern for Hamilton and Russell as Mercedes don't understand update
After a painful couple of years, Mercedes finally made significant steps forward with upgrades. The fruits started to appear at the Canadian Grand Prix and since then the team went on a winning run. However, there is now fresh concern for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell as Mercedes admit they don't fully understand the latest upgrade applied.
Mercedes added a new floor in Belgium but took it off for the meaningful sessions on Saturday and Sunday. It turned out to be there best on track result for some time, with a one-two finish across the line. Russell was disqualified, but they kept the winning trophy because of Hamilton's position.
The floor reappeared after the summer break. In the first free practice at Zandvoort, they ran a split session with the new floor on one car and the old on the other car to get some comparison data. Mercedes opted to run with the new floor for the rest of the weekend as previously planned. Hamilton failed to escape Q2, and Russell dropped backwards in the race. This has left the technical team scratching their heads.
Mercedes admit uncertainty over new floor
In the Mercedes debrief, Technical Director James Allison was asked about how the new floor performed. "Simple answer is, we don't fully know," Allison said before explaining some contrasting views.
"You can take some straightforward measurements and say that the downforce it was supposed to deliver looked like it was there. So at one level, you could take comfort that it worked as expected. But a lot of the pace of the cars in this year, particularly, is down to how well they handle. So it's not just a question of ‘does your aero package deliver you downforce’, but is it delivering you the balanced car that you need through the corners? Is it delivering you the balanced car you need from high speed to low speed? And we definitely know that we didn't have a well-balanced car this weekend. That's where most of our pace went," Allison added.
Mercedes will continue to investigate it over the coming race weekends. "Whether that was the new floor, the new aero package or not, we need to keep an open mind and something we will need to revisit in future races. So right now, we know it measured the downforce, but we're not certain that it delivered good balance," Allison concluded.
This weekend, Mercedes will compete in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. It will be the last time Lewis Hamilton will race in Italy for Mercedes, as next year he will be able to count on the support from the Tifosi as he will be in the Ferrari car.