Mercedes is ready to strengthen its position in the championship by bringing a new floor to the Spanish Grand Prix .
The German manufacturer had its most competitive weekend of the year last weekend in Montreal when George Russell took pole position and claimed his first podium of the season.
But the result was probably not as good as the team could have hoped as the W15 pace was super strong in various parts of the weekend.
The new front wing introduced by Mercedes to complement the recent upgrade appears to have transformed the balance characteristics of their car and suggests that the team has finally begun to unlock the secrets of the current ground effect package.
With plans for further upgrades, including a new floor, to be brought to Barcelona, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted there was a sense his team was finally moving away from the difficulties it had in the past with improvements not delivering what they had hoped for.
“Definitely, we’ve taken the right steps since Imola and put parts on the car that work, something we’ve struggled with for the last few years,” Wolff said.
“It seems that now we are purposefully adding performance every weekend and we also have new things, new parts coming to Barcelona that should help us. Therefore, I very much hope that we can continue on this positive path.”
While much of the focus of the leap Mercedes has made has been around the new front wing philosophy, Wolff says the car’s improvements are much bigger than that.
The Austrian adds that progress has been aided by a series of changes and an improved understanding of the car, which helps them unlock what is needed.
“Sometimes when you bring in a very visible part like the body or the front wing, it’s mostly a story about what changed the performance,” he explains.
“But the truth is that during the last three races we brought so many new parts, visible and invisible to the eye, which contributed milliseconds to better performance.”
“I think that these marginal gains have a positive effect here. It was just a big effort from the factory, so the wheel really started to turn.”
