Mercedes have decided to stick with their new floor element for the remainder of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, despite abandoning the element after initial concerns last time out in Belgium.

The Brackley-based team faced a challenging Friday at Spa, marked by balance and straight-line speed issues that forced them to resort to the minimum specification of their car.

Despite this setback, an analysis of the data collected at Spa showed that the new design was indeed an improvement, even if its potential was not immediately apparent.

To confirm their results, they split the specifications of their cars in the first practice session at Zandvoort on Friday: George Russell drove on the new floor and Lewis Hamilton on the old one.

The team was already convinced of the advantages of the new flooring in the second practice session and ran both cars with the update. Russell led the second practice session.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ track technical director, was pleased with the initial results.

“Today was an encouraging start to the weekend,” he said. “The conditions in FP1 were particularly difficult, with very strong winds and heavy rain, which made it difficult to properly assess the updated surface we brought with us to Spa.”

“However, what we have seen seems to be in line with our expectations. Therefore, we will continue the weekend with this equipment on both cars.”

The decision to keep the new underbody in both cars comes as Mercedes prepares for another closely contested race on Sunday due to Friday’s performance discrepancy between the Silver Arrows team and its rivals from McLaren and Red Bull.

While Russell acknowledged the difficult conditions on Friday, he stressed the car’s strong performance with the new floor element.

“It was difficult out there because of the wind,” he said. “I can remember it being the windiest conditions I’ve driven an F1 car in in recent years.”

Despite this, the car was performing really well and the updated floor we brought to Spa seemed to be working effectively.

“The top field once again seems to be quite close together. We expect another exciting battle for the podium places for the rest of the weekend.”

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