James Vowles: The car wobble problem hasn’t gone away

Mercedes believes that the problem of destabilization of the car at high speeds, which hindered the team at the start of the season, has not yet been completely eliminated, although it manifested itself much less in Spain in the previous phase, therefore significant progress created.

However, according to chief race engineer James Vowles, it is likely that no solution has yet been found that would completely eliminate the problem of the car’s longitudinal sway.

“In only one of the six races, our car behaved normally. We finally had a car that worked as it should,” says Vowles. “We could fine-tune it, we could refine it, we could experiment with it, and the W13 would react in a predictable way. The same cannot be said for the car we faced in the first five races of the season.

However, we must refrain from setting too high expectations as this was only on one track, which suited our car for many years. We still have a lot to figure out and analyze a lot. I think it would be wrong to say that the machine build problem is gone.

We continue to see our rivals’ cars being affected by it and I’m sure it will reappear to some degree as we continue to study it, but a certain foundation has been laid in Barcelona.

I can confirm that we have made a certain step forward, if we talk about the measures we have taken while working on the track, and now we can develop what we have achieved.

We are going to race on circuits where we foresee difficulties, these are Monaco and Baku, which are difficult in themselves and can bring surprises. But the difference is that we are now not much behind the leaders in terms of speed, and our car allows us to fight for victories.”

At the same time, in Spain, both Mercedes drivers had to slow down in the final laps of the Grand Prix due to power plant problems. Vowles attributed this to the car overheating in the high temperatures that accompanied the weekend in Barcelona.

“The power plant overheated very much,” he admitted. – To better understand the situation, air temperatures approached 37 degrees during the race, and it started at 36, but then it got even hotter. This is a lot, so the conditions in which the Spanish Grand Prix was held were unusual compared to almost every other race on the calendar.

The drivers had to react to this, which could be done by switching to a more forgiving powertrain mode and making sure the car was getting enough air to cool it down, and by accelerating and coasting regularly. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell did a great job and were able to drive these cars to the finish.”