The Mercedes cars will be fitted with the previous specification underbody, used prior to the Spa stage, for the Baku weekend, although this was only tested during Friday practice at the Belgian circuit. The team’s drivers felt that the car’s behaviour became less stable after switching to the modernised version.
This was clearly visible in Zandvoort and Monza, where the W15 could occasionally reach a good speed, but at the same time behaved quite unpredictably. After the Italian Grand Prix, Toto Wolff summarised: “We were able to complete one lap quickly, which is good news in principle, but the balance left a lot to be desired, which affected the performance of the tyres over the race distance.”
In these two stages, the team’s best result was Lewis Hamilton’s 5th place in Monza.
“There are many questions, we are trying to find the answer. Problems can be related to the characteristics of a certain route. Maybe it is the new products that did not work – my intuition tells me it is them,” the seven-time world champion said today. “It is not easy to see the difference between the two versions, but this weekend we will try to reverse some decisions to see if that is the problem.”
“The new products have not made any significant improvements, and there are times when it is important to look at things as objectively as possible,” says George Russell. – We put in a new bottom, and then the results deteriorated, which was the main change.
We understood that the new products would not be revolutionary, it was just another step in the direction we had chosen. So it was a logical decision to return to the basic specification we had been using before Spa…
Although, regardless of the results of this weekend, it is unlikely that we will come to definitive conclusions and say that the problem is specifically related to the soil or something else. We just have to work on this phase and see how we deal with it, because soon we will receive the next new products, after which the picture will change again.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
