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Mercedes shocked the world and the grid when they rolled out the W13 in Bahrain on day 1 of pre-season testing. As astute viewers may have noted, the W13 lacked the conventional sidepod structure seen on F1 cars since 1998. It was designed as a zero space-low drag concept, shown before by McLaren in 2003 and at the start of their partnership with Honda in 2015, but taken to further extremes. This was followed by an underwhelming start to the season which saw the drivers complaining due to uncomfortable rides and exaggerated bouncing at the end of straights known as "porpoising".
Where does Mercedes stand?
For the first time since the Turbo-Hybrid era of F1 began in 2014, the team from Brixworth was not the target. Following the team’s poor start were questions regarding the steps being taken by Mercedes to combat the porpoising issue. It seemed for the longest time that the season would be a write-off for the German manufacturer, with suggestions of discarding the Slimline/Zeropod concept and starting from scratch.
It took Mercedes until the 6th round of the championship to bring a raft of updates. Suggestions, however, were made from within the team that should these upgrades fail to deliver, it might have to go back to the drawing board and focus all its efforts on a new development cycle for a different concept.
The Mercedes drivers appeared to be in top form for round 5 of the championship, as the teams and drivers familiarised themselves with the brand new track in Miami. George Russell finished 2nd fastest in FP1 and fastest in FP2, with teammate Lewis Hamilton 4th fastest in the afternoon session. This form, however, disappeared over the next 2 days as the track gripped up and became quicker, with the Silver Arrows again suffering from bouncing on quite a smooth and freshly-paved track.
Despite finishing 5th and 6th with Russell and Hamilton respectively, there were signs of growing frustrations within the Mercedes garage as they appeared to be no closer to solving the porpoising issue. This would indicate that the W13 has an extremely sensitive operating window with little to no change experienced by the drivers in a myriad of different set-ups.
The following race weekend at Barcelona saw Mercedes and 8 other constructors bringing major upgrades to their cars, with the Mercs seemingly closer to the front of the pack pace-wise. The race saw Russell fight for the podium spot with the Red Bulls, finishing 3rd, as Hamilton showed race-winning pace on a scintillating recovery drive following a puncture on the first lap. The Mercedes W13 was visibly more stable, with much lower amplitudes of porpoising, and it showed in their pace through the first sector as well as their speed trap figures across the weekend.
What were Mercedes' upgrades?
Mercedes were among nine teams to bring significant upgrades to Barcelona with changes to the front wing endplate, the outboard end of the diffuser, the floor edge, or the front of the floor, and the floor body.
The changes to the front wing end plate are to the camber of the endplate itself, which is more about the optimization of the airflow in a track-specific setting. The floor edge of the W13 now contains a dive plane or keel resting above the front lip of the floor, bringing the Silver Arrows in line with most of the grid. This should help in generating more front-end downforce and provide more grip as the drivers enter the braking phase of corners. This is due to vortices generated off the edge of the keel, which improves the flow characteristics as the air enters the venturi tunnels of the floor.
The floor edge now has some more adjustable settings which should allow Mercedes to better seal the airflow under the car based on track-specific settings. The floor now has 2 separated outlets at the back and a gurney flap to the front corner of the floor as well. All of these changes individually would be akin to drops in the ocean, but Mercedes has managed to gain significant pace back from all these elements working together.
The outboard end of the diffuser is now much more aggressive, with the endplate cutting off early and cutting upwards much more sharply in contrast to the sweeping cut-out of the earlier specification. This should help seal the vertical sides of the diffuser, but more importantly, generate load directly onto the contact patch of the tire instead of through the suspension. With this change, they should be able to soften the vertical stiffness of the suspension system.
Did Mercedes suffer a relapse?
The streets of Monaco welcomed the F1 paddock once again as the drivers looked to extract the maximum from their cars on a single lap around the Principality. With a few straights and a tight and technical track, common wisdom would suggest that vehicles performing well in the final sector at Barcelona would replicate the performance by the harbor of Monte-Carlo.
Hopes in the Mercedes garage that their weekend would progress smoothly, however, were dashed immediately as the drivers complained about the ride and porpoising from the very first lap of practice. George Russell was able to extract more from the car over a single lap and qualified 6th, turning that into 5th on Sunday through strategy and race pace. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton was left to suffer the result of a poor qualifying as he was stuck behind the Alpines of Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon for large periods of the race to finish 8th.
The streets of Monaco are considered to be one of the toughest mental challenges for an F1 driver, with no respite between any of the 19 corners around the shortest track on the Grand Prix calendar. Another thing that the streets of Monaco are known for is the bumps on the track forcing drivers to choose other racing lines like the bump leading up to Mirabeau.
It appears that with enough speed, even at the relatively low speed of Monaco, the Mercedes W13 is inducing the same bottoming out and bouncing characteristics of the car at high speeds due to the extremely bumpy texture of the road. This, coupled with the unsophisticated suspension systems of this generation of cars, seems to be a major hurdle for the German manufacturer and could be the key to unlocking more consistent and reliable performance across different tracks, temperatures, and conditions.
