Why Miami practice has given Mercedes increased hope

Mercedes’ James Vowles believes the practice sessions in Miami underlined the potential of the W13, having shown particularly strong performance early in the weekend.

The W13 has proven to be a troublesome machine ever since the beginning of the 2022 season, with the car afflicted by particularly pronounced porpoising down the straights.

This has had the effect of forcing Mercedes to raise the ride height of the car, which has resulted in a relative lack of downforce and, in turn, outright laptime. However, the sidepod-less concept Mercedes have pursued still has the backing of the team, with Toto Wolff adamant that the potential of the car is yet to be fully unlocked.

The Miami practice sessions lent some validity to Mercedes’ arguments, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton much more competitive throughout Friday’s track time. Russell ended the day with the fastest time, with Hamilton in fourth.

While the team made setup changes that resulted in a dip in performance from which they couldn’t reverse through Saturday, Mercedes believe Miami has given them a much more positive dataset to bring onwards to Barcelona.

“On Friday, it’s not that we were running low fuel – that car was quick!” Mercedes’ Chief Strategist James Vowles told the F1 Nation podcast.

“It was quick on one lap, it was quick on the long run that we did at the end of FP2. It’s fair to say [that], as we went to Saturday and from Saturday onwards, the car dropped away quite a bit.

“If we understood all of the reasons why, clearly the car would be quick in the race or quick in qualifying and we don’t yet.

“But there’s another step of learning that we made. Because we were able, for the first time, to get both cars into a sensible place. It provided a foundation to work on into Barcelona to grow. But, exactly why, we couldn’t tell you at this point in time. We don’t know specifically why it dropped the performance in the way it did.

“The positive, though, is that…