Mercedes say the porpoising problems they have experienced in previous races may not be permanently fixed despite finding a significant improvement at last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
Porpoising was a significant limitation for Mercedes in the opening rounds of the season. The problem was so serious that at Imola George Russell warned that the situation was not sustainable.
The team appeared to significantly reduce the bouncing they experienced in Miami during Friday’s practice sessions, only for it to return the following day. However their Barcelona upgrade package appeared to provide a more definitive fix, leading to their most competitive performance of the season so far.
However Mercedes’ motorsport strategy director James Vowles warned that it might not be a completely solution to the issue.
“We’ve had one race out of six where the car has been well-behaved,” he explained in a video released by the team. “It was a car that, really, was a proper racing car for once.
“We could set it up, we could tune it, we could play around with the settings and it would respond in a way that was predictable and the same couldn’t be said for the car that we had for the first five races of the season.
“However, we have to temper our expectations,” he continued. “It’s one track and a track that has suited our car for many years prior to this one. There is a lot for us to understand and learn. I think it would be wrong to say that the porpoising issue has disappeared.”
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Vowles pointed to other teams where the problem had come and gone to a greater or lesser extent. “You still see it on our competitors and I am sure there will be elements of it coming back again as we build on our understanding and the foundations that we laid down in Barcelona.
“What I can say is we made a definitive step, a step in our understanding and the deployment of what we put on track and we can build on that, and the same…