Mercedes say porpoising is no longer the main reason for their performance deficit

Mercedes’ Toto Wolff and James Vowles have explained porpoising is no longer the main reason for the team’s performance struggles.

The reigning Constructors’ champions have struggled for pace and consistency since the start of the 2022 season, with last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix seeing the two Mercedes drivers come home in third and fourth places, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton respectively.

Since the start of the year, the blame for most of Mercedes’ deficit has lain at the feet of the porpoising aerodynamic phenomenon that has plagued the W13, but Wolff and Vowles have explained porpoising is no longer the key culprit as the car has developed.

Speaking to Channel 4, Wolff said porpoising is not responsible for the main chunk of their time loss.

“I think porpoising in itself is maybe not the key thing, it’s just that the car feels rigid – that kind of overshadows everything,” he said.

“We are talking about set-up directions that are influenced by the bouncing, rather than say ‘okay, we are not having that now, let’s look how we can make the car faster’.”

Curiously, Mercedes appeared to have a handle on the porpoising a few weeks ago during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend as both Russell and Hamilton showed much more competitive pace at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

With Monaco an outlier in terms of set-up direction, Mercedes had hoped for a continuation of that improvement in Azerbaijan – only for the W13 to struggle due to excessive bouncing. So violent were the ground strikes, Hamilton was visibly hurting as he climbed out of his car at the end of the race.

🗣️ “Bit sore… we’re hitting some serious speeds at the end here and it’s bouncing a lot.”

Lewis Hamilton admitted he was in pain as Mercedes experienced more porpoising problems during Friday’s practice sessions | #AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/NnBzNcAxC4

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) June 11, 2022

Mercedes’ chief strategist Vowles explained the team have managed to get on top of the porpoising only to discover an entirely new set of problems.

“There is definitely a track-by-track element and it’s a function of how smooth the tarmac is and the layout of the circuit,” he said in the team’s review of Azerbaijan.

“I would say Baku, certainly of the circuits we’ve had so far, is at the worse end of it and conversely, Barcelona probably at the better end of it. So those two circuits definitely will highlight the strengths and…