Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says their results after the summer break were affected by their W15 car being more on the edge.
The German manufacturer entered the period before going on break buoyed by three wins in four races – George Russell triumphed in Austria and Lewis Hamilton added victories in Britain and Belgium.
But after returning to action, opening the second leg at Zandvoort, Mercedes ran into trouble – their best result was Hamilton’s fifth place at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
The team does not fully understand why things have been more difficult in recent weeks, but they are aware that the characteristics of his W15 have indeed changed.
“We are able to get one round, which is good news in principle,” explained Wolff. “But then the balance is somehow not good enough for the tires to be happy for the race.”
“It’s been a theme since Zandvoort. It was more on the edge, it’s harder to find the right balance.”
One possible cause of the problem could be related to the new floor that Mercedes introduced at the Belgian Grand Prix, but was dropped that weekend due to concerns about it.
The German team continued to analyze the floor over the weekend at Zandvoort and Monza and are confident that it provides the extra downforce they were hoping for.
However, it is not yet certain whether the new design contributed to the W15’s less-than-ideal balance, which made Russell and Hamilton uncomfortable in the car.
Speaking in the team’s regular video briefing after the weekend, Mercedes race director Andrew Shovlin said some questions remained about the floor.
“During the last three races, we did various package comparisons and mostly comparing the floor,” said Shovlin. “What we are confident is that it is creating the workload that we expect.”
“The harder question we have to answer is: Is there something subtle about the handling characteristics that this floor might be doing that we haven’t anticipated?”
Shovlin added that finding an answer to the situation is not easy, because the balance of the cars is never constant on different tracks.
“It is quite difficult to judge, because the car will behave differently from track to track, on some tracks it worked very well. Other tracks we struggled with the balance of the car regardless of the aerodynamic specifications.”
“Maybe it’s just a normal variation from track to track, but that’s what we’ll be looking at over the next few days. On top of that, there are other updates we’re making to the system.”
“There’s a lot to consider, but we have a lot of data now and we can go and use the next few days to learn what we can from it.”
