George Russell finished P4 in Jeddah while Lewis Hamilton could only manage to get at P10 in Saudi Arabian GP.
The problems of Mercedes’ W13 continued in the Saudi Arabian GP and Lewis Hamilton suffered the most from it. His teammate George Russell believes that problems lie in Hamilton’s more conservative set-up.
Russell had a better weekend than his teammate as he finished in fifth place having started from sixth on the grid in Jeddah. Meanwhile, Hamilton started the race from P16 and could only manage to place himself in 10th position.
Russell gave his opinion on Hamilton’s situation and said, “On Lewis’s side of the garage, they probably went a bit more conservative with the set-up than we did, and that was the difference.”
“It’s a real fine line between getting the car in the right window. There are so many factors at play when we’re bouncing. Sometimes we change the set-up and we think it will improve, but it makes it slightly worse.”
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George Russell believes solving porpoising is the key
Mercedes has been working on improving the porpoising problem in its car but it is not an easy fix as it depends on several other factors of the new car.
Russell explained how complicated it is to solve the problem as there are many factors that contribute in making a car better or worse.
He said, “Between the mechanical stiffness of the car, then the stiffness of the floors, the design of the floors, tyre pressures, you know, there’s so many factors at play that contribute to making it better or worse. Engine mode as well. The faster you go, the worse it gets.”
“It makes it harder for qualifying – we turn the engines up to maximum power, go quicker down the straight, [which] causes more downforce and more porpoising.”
“We almost need to pre-empt this issue, and also in the race, when you have DRS closed, you have more downforce than you do with DRS open, and that’s another factor that we need to consider.”
“We’re still learning and that’s why we’re far from optimal. If we solve the porpoising that would cure 99 per cent of our issues,” he concluded.
