"We believe this is the route to go down" - Mercedes could return to fatter sidepods in future

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff still believes the team's car concept without the sidepods is the correct route forward. However, depending on the situation with their car's performance, they may go back to their original designs.

Speaking to The Race during the Miami GP weekend, the Mercedes chief said:

“Well, I wouldn’t discount anything but we need to give all of our people who have produced great race cars in the past the benefit of the doubt, and we believe this is the route to go down. Barcelona [the next race] is definitely going to be a point in time when we are able to correlate with what we’ve seen in February [in the first test there with the old concept] and gather more data.”

The Austrian believes that although Mercedes wouldn’t discount reverting back to the original design of the W13 with sidepods, the current route is something they would prefer to stick to.

Wolff feels that despite the frustration of having to experiment with different methods to extract performance from their car, working on their current concept makes the most sense.

According to the Mercedes team boss, replicating other concepts from rival cars or producing a concept inspired by other cars on the grid will not make sense.

The 50-year-old has faith in his workforce, which has produced winning machines in the past. He is also positive about seeking solutions at the Barcelona GP, a venue they tested at in February.

Shedding further light on the expectations from their car concept, Wolff said:

"I’m also annoyed by always saying the same thing a lot: gathering data and making experiments. But it’s physics and not mystics. We’re not looking at the lady next door and if we like it more or not, because it’s still good.

"As a matter of fact, we need to understand – before you make a decision to switch to another concept – where did this one go wrong? What is the goodness of the concept and what is the badness of the concept? And that is a question you can only respond to yourself, but I would be asking ourselves to get an answer after Barcelona, because that’s the real correlation we have."

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Mercedes boss still feels the W13 has potential to perform

Toto Wolff believes that the W13 has potential, but Mercedes are unable to unlock the performance from it.

While the inquest into finding the optimum performance window is a long-drawn process, the Silver Arrows team chief feels it can be taxing on both the team and drivers. The team has admitted that removing porpoising is key to resolving most of their performance woes.

Lamenting the process of unlocking the W13’s potential, Wolff said:

“It’s clear that there is potential in the car, which is fast. But we just don’t understand how to unlock the potential. It’s a car that is super-difficult to drive and on the edge, dipping in and out of the performance window – more out than in. And dissecting the data with a scalpel is just a painful process because it takes a very long time and as a matter of fact the data sometimes doesn’t show what the drivers tell us.”

Empathizing with the dual role his drivers have to play, Wolff said:

“Certainly they have their hands full with a car that is not at all comfortable to drive or nice to drive or predictable to drive. But the data doesn’t show these big swings. We haven’t had this situation before where it just doesn’t correlate what we see on the screens with what the driver feels. That’s making it even more difficult.”

According to Wolff, the process of unlocking performance from the W13 is more frustrating for the drivers because of the discomfort in driving it.

The team's concept suffers from extreme porpoising, making it harder for drivers to help with feedback and extract maximum performance from their car.