According to the results of the first practice session in Monaco, the Mercedes drivers were on the 8th and 10th lines of protocol and Lewis Hamilton complained more about the car than his partner, although George Russell wasn’t too happy either.
In short, the W13 suffered from longitudinal build-up at high speeds, this very unpleasant phenomenon reappeared on the city circuit and Lewis at one point even said on the radio that he almost lost consciousness – the car was shaking so hard.
After completing the first training session, the head of the Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, commented on what happened on Sky Sports: “I think the problem has to do with ground clearance, we have been fighting it since the start of the season. and it has a very strong effect on the destabilization of the car.Sometimes aerodynamic phenomena are exacerbated by sub-optimal settings for the suspension stiffness, and now it is precisely the excessive stiffness that matters.
That said, the car seems to be able to handle some pretty high speeds, we were fast all session, although the pace may have dropped towards the end, when we worked long runs of circles with hard tires. Overall the car isn’t bad, that’s just a handling problem.
That’s why we’re now making changes to the settings to make it more comfortable for riders to fly. Since the car is fast, we have to do everything we can to accommodate Lewis and George’s wishes. In any case, we understand the characteristics of our car better, gradually adding and closing the gap with the leaders.”
Even before the end of the session, the work in the Mercedes boxes really started, the mechanics promptly made changes to the car’s settings, including replacing the front suspension springs with less stiff ones.
According to Nico Rosberg, the 2016 world champion, the team has to solve the difficult task of finding the right compromise, because even a small change in suspension stiffness and increased ground clearance leads to a deterioration of the lap results by a tenth or even Lake .
Source: F1 News
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