Bouncing is a phenomenon that teams have experienced again this year thanks to new rules that give a much higher share of downforce from the floor, and although it has been experienced to a greater or lesser extent by all Mercedes teams, it has been hit the hardest.
In order to reduce the bounce to an acceptable level, Mercedes has to raise the distance of the rear end from the ground, but because of that they lose too much performance in medium-fast and slow turns where the car is too high from the ground, which brings less downforce.
In Imola, Mercedes was left without a single car in Q3 for the first time since the 2012 Japan Grand Prix, and Russell gave them a great result in the race thanks to a great start and finally one step closer to the podium while Hamilton was only 13th.
“We have interesting ideas and concepts that we are trying out and that will find its way to the car in the next few races so we can make a decision,” Wolff commented on the development path of the Mercedes car for Speedcafe.
“There is no such thing as a wrong concept, but there is a part that just doesn’t work with these rules. You don’t need to discard good things, you can keep it. But if there are basic areas that do not allow us to unlock the potential that we believe is in the car, then we will have to minimize losses. ”
“We believe this is the right development path we need to take so it will be a challenging task.”
“And before we decide, we really have to keep trying to understand what it’s all about because only then can we say‘ okay, cut losses, switch to the car for next year ’, when we really understand what went wrong. And at the moment we still don’t understand that. ”
Hamilton hopes that Mercedes will find a solution to the jump and that it will unlock more performance.
“I can’t say if the car was misconceived, I’m not an aerodynamicist,” Hamilton said.
“It simply came to our notice then. Maybe we can solve the jump and suddenly unlock more potential. ”
“Of course, I want to fight for the title, but unfortunately that is not the case. We have to accept the reality and we will do that as runners, we will continue to fight. ” 