Mercedes makes a step forward but insists there’s more to come

BARCELONA, Spain — Mercedes is hopeful that the step up in performance it made at the Spanish Grand Prix will offer a platform for it to chase down Red Bull and Ferrari at the coming rounds.

George Russell secured the team’s best qualifying result of the season with the fourth fastest time at the Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday behind Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz. The margin to pole position was also the smallest it has been for either Mercedes driver this year at 0.643s.

The relative improvement came after Mercedes introduced an upgrade package to its car that helped address the bouncing problems it has struggled with since the start of the year. Russell and teammate Lewis Hamilton reported no bouncing on the straight, although it was still present in high-speed corners at Turn 3 and Turn 9.

Team principal Toto Wolff hopes that solving the bouncing will allow his engineers to turn their focus towards outright performance at the coming races.

“I think we have done a solid step, whilst we know how to unlock more performance, and we’re not yet there,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “So it’s step by step.

“The other teams have been able to continue to develop their car whilst we have been a little bit in a pause moment to find out about the bouncing.

“As soon as we can pick up the regular development, as soon as we understand the tyres better now the bouncing is gone, I think we will be catching up.”

The bouncing issue is related to the underfloor aerodynamics of the car and the airflow’s tendency to momentarily stall when the downforce acting on the car forces the floor into the track surface. At times the bouncing has been so bad that it has damaged the underside of the car or forced drivers to back off the throttle on the straights.

At previous rounds, Mercedes eased the problem by running a higher rear ride height, but in doing so it sacrificed aerodynamic performance and lap time. However, updates in Spain — which included modified floor edges,…