Mercedes reveals how new floor affects lost speed at Zandvoort | F1
At Mercedes there was discussion about whether the new surface had an influence on the below-average weekend in Zandvoort.
Toto Wolff’s F1 team arrives in Monza for the Italian F1 Grand Prix this weekend hoping to quickly forget what went wrong a week ago.
In the Netherlands, Lewis Hamilton declared his weekend “over” after a poor qualifying session before finishing eighth in the Grand Prix. George Russell finished sixth and had grip issues.
This ended a remarkable series of three victories in four Grand Prix.
Technical Director James Allison said: “It won’t be as simple as ‘the track doesn’t suit the car’.”
“Whether you have a good weekend or not depends on a lot of factors. They all have to be almost perfect to achieve what you would call the true pace of the car.”
“In the run-up to the closure, we managed to do our best on virtually every track.
“At Zandvoort we didn’t get the momentum we needed to get the best out of the car because of the weather on Friday and the decisions we made overnight.
“Small mistakes, small setup errors turn a competitive team into mediocrity. It’s a tight race at the top.”
“We didn’t manage it and therefore only achieved a mediocre result.”
Allison was asked if Mercedes’ new floor played a role in the lack of speed.
The underbody was introduced at Spa and then withdrawn after confusing results. It was reintroduced for the race at Zandvoort.
“The simple answer is: we don’t know exactly,” he admitted.
“It’s easy to measure – the downforce was there. On the one hand, you could assume that it worked as expected.
“However, the speed of the cars this year depends largely on their handling.
“The question is not just, ‘Does your aerodynamic package provide downforce?’ The question is, ‘Does it provide the balance of the car that you need in the corners, the balance of the car that you need at both high and low speed?'”
“We didn’t have a balanced car. That meant we lost pace.”
“Whether it was the underbody or the aero package? We have to remain unbiased.”
“At the moment we know that it measured the downforce. But we don’t know if it provided the balance.”
Before Monza, Mercedes is in fourth place in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.
