After a tough start to the 2022 season, Mercedes is adopting a cautious approach to determining how to unlock the W13’s capabilities.
Toto Wolff has reaffirmed his view that Benz will be able to unleash the W13’s maximum potential as the season progresses, clarifying why the squad isn’t hurrying to release reactive improvements.
While the Silver Arrows seemed to be more effective last time out in Australia, racers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were critical of the car’s lack of response to set-up tweaks made over the weekend.
The difficulty will be considerably higher as the team heads to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which will host the first Sprint race of the 2022 season. Due to the new format, drivers will only have 60 minutes of practise time before entering parc ferme conditions in preparation for Friday’s qualifying.
Despite their slow start to the season, Mercedes has refrained from making any upgrades to the W13, with Wolff claiming that maintaining a constant level of performance is more crucial at this early stage of the current aerodynamic rules, as teams try to figure out the ground effect formula.
The term “ground effect” refers to a “new manner” of analysing data
“I believe that we are going to get it nailed on with this car,” Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.com.
“You can see that many other teams, like Ferrari, still have some bouncing, but they have done many other things right that we missed out on, or that we didn’t perform very well.
“The same for Red Bull. I mean, their car got quick from one day to the other in Bahrain testing by bringing the updates.”
The stringent nature of the rules, as well as real-world track time, means that figuring out how to best link data with how the car drives on the racetrack is a new process, according to Wolff.
“This car is very difficult to correlate, because you can only move the car with a certain frequency in the wind tunnel, where it’s limited. On track, it does something completely different” he said.
“This is a new way of analysing aero data, it’s a new way of correlation between the simulations and the real world, which needs to be understood. We have the tools and the people to understand that, but we haven’t found that yet.”
Mercedes “still learning” three races in
In Australia, both Mercedes racers grumbled about how the W13 didn’t respond to set-up modifications, with Wolff adding that nothing seemed to affect the level of porpoising on racetrack.
“I think we’re just learning the car. We’re learning the tyres,” the team boss commented.
“Nothing we did [in Australia] unlocked the aerodynamic potential, or reduced the bouncing.
“We’re still in the same place, and that’s why it doesn’t make any sense to bring updates, because you’re confusing yourself even more. Maybe it’s even the fact that the more downforce you bring, the worse the bouncing gets, so we’re still learning.”
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