Pre-season testing has given all the ten teams and the drivers a lot to think about. While 2023 might’ve been a whitewash thanks to Max Verstappen and Red Bull, other teams have now taken a lot of developmental strides to reduce the gap to the Milton Keynes-based outfit. Mercedes are one team that have taken lessons the hard way. However, despite revamping their entire design concept and philosophy with the W15, George Russell reported that their biggest demon of the past years, ‘porpoising‘, had returned.
Autosport quoted the 26-year-old as revealing, “But the one area that we need to continue to work on is probably the bouncing that we’re seeing. We got caught up with a bit of bouncing [in testing] last week.”
This issue was first witnessed by Mercedes and several other teams during the 2022 season. As a result of it, most of the sides were forced to run aggressively low on their ride heights to save performance.
However, the inherent aero characteristics of the latest ground effect cars meant that at a certain load, in the straights, the car would bounce, causing immense pain to the drivers. Mercedes seemed like the worst-inflicted team out of the lot.
Rapid development over the course of two seasons meant that all the teams had virtually eliminated this issue. However, with the W14 being “cut from the same cloth” as the W13, the bouncing returned for the Silver Arrows last year, severely hampering the drivability and performance of the car.
That being said, by the end of last season, it seemed as though even Mercedes had finally gotten rid of the problem. But Russell‘s post-testing debrief would suggest otherwise.
Mercedes in no man’s land after 2024 pre-season testing
After three days of running at the Bahrain International Circuit, Mercedes have failed to leave an impression. While the car looked stable and the drivers reacted well to it, the team isn’t looking like a championship contender.
That being said, testing times often do not provide an accurate representation of the pecking order. The Brackley-based outfit got in some decent mileage by putting in 361 laps.
George Russell was the fastest Mercedes man and ended up P3 overall after the three-day test. Now, with less than a day remaining for the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend to begin, fans will get a better understanding of where the teams are at, once the drivers set their lap times during the practice sessions.
