Mercedes are staring down at yet another year without a championship. Even worse, they might be looking at their first winless season since 2011. However, things haven’t been all doom and gloom. The W14, especially since the upgrades, has been significantly better than its predecessor. It has given a lot of confidence to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. The Belgian GP however, saw a comeback of their porpoising issues.
A Step Forward
Mercedes started this season quite similarly to last season. However, they were in for some more embarrassment as Aston Martin, one of their customer teams, was faster than them. Ferrari kept messing up their races, and Lance Stroll struggled while Fernando Alonso picked up podium after podium. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell kept up their consistency and racked up a lot of points.
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Therefore, as Mercedes understood their car better and better, the results kept on improving. After their major upgrades at Monaco, the car became a genuine contender for the best of the rest. With another set of upgrades at the Belgian GP, they have managed to extract even more performance.
Return of an old nemesis
The Belgian GP, although a good one, saw the return of porpoising for Mercedes. A few other cars were suffering as well. But George Russell and Lewis Hamilton had it worse. According to Mike Elliott, this was the result of a combination of the characteristics of the track and the car setup.
The Belgian GP saw almost no dry running throughout the weekend. The first bit of meaningful dry running came during the race itself. Being a sprint weekend, the teams had to lock down their setups by qualifying on Friday afternoon.
This meant that all the teams were going in blind. Mercedes managed to land on a setup that reignited their porpoising. Mike Elliott also mentioned the nature of the track as a reason for the return of their porpoising. While he cannot rule it out, he is pretty sure the car hasn’t regressed.
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