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Lewis Hamilton experienced some problems with his Mercedes W15 during the Belgian Grand Prix despite recent upgrades.
Porpoising or 'bouncing' has been a huge problem for Mercedes ever since 2022. Both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have brought up the issue of extreme bouncing of the car multiple times. But it looks like even with recent upgrades, the W15 seems to have some issues.
Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott acknowledges that the team is still working to resolve the bouncing issue that troubled its cars at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Given that Mercedes only had the wet FP1 session in which to fine-tune their cars according to the circuit, Elliott says the team will have to assess whether it was circuit-specific or connected to set-up.
“We definitely had an amount of bouncing this weekend, both drivers were telling us that and we could see it in the data," Elliot said in a team video.
He continued:
"In terms of the performance, it definitely affects the performance of the cars because it affects the drivers’ ability to extract the maximum grip from the car, it affects their balance and it affects their ability to get their braking points right.”
Elliott also stated that both drivers opted for different downforce options for their run and that's why both drivers had different aero upgrades for Spa. He said that the team is investigating the problem and hopes to resolve it as soon as possible.
Mercedes clarifies the contract incident between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in SQ3
In a swarm of cars slowing into the last chicane to ensure a faultless start to their final flying lap, Lewis Hamilton found himself behind teammate Russell by the time he reached Turn 1. This hindered Hamilton's flying lap and he qualified P7.
In a recent team debrief video, Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott explained what exactly happened between the two teammates. He explained how the constant change in the track played an important role in poor qualifying performance.
“Unfortunately for us, our two drivers tripping over each other pretty much meant that we didn’t get the laps that we wanted and therefore didn’t get the sprint qualifying result we really hoped for," he said
He also stated that they reviewed all team radio and onboard footage from both the cars to learn what happened and hopefully to resolve any problems that they might have discovered.
