Russell: “99%” of the problems with the Mercedes are related to bottlenosing

Starting in sixth place on the Saudi grid, British driver George Russell finished the Grand Prix in fifth position, well ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who finished tenth. While the W13 cars lacked pace compared to Ferrari and Red Bull, George Russell believes that several factors are preventing the German team from solving the issue of underperformance.

« There are so many factors at play between the mechanical rigidity of the car, the rigidity of the floors, the design of the floors, and the tire pressure,” Russell explained.
» The engine mode as well, because the faster you drive, the more the problem is felt. So it’s harder during qualifying sessions, because we push the engines to the maximum, we go faster in a straight line, which generates more downforce and therefore more bouncing,” he lamented.

« We must almost anticipate this problem. In racing, when you have the DRS closed, you have more downforce than with an open DRS, it’s another factor to take into account. » continued the new Mercedes driver. « We are still trying to learn, which is why we are far from maximum optimization. That’s why I said that if we solve the porpoising problem, it would solve 99% of our problems. ».

How long will it take to fix this issue?

“We are going to try to develop the car by working around the difficulties, but we need to solve the underlying problem, which is the porpoising,” said George Russell. “All these cars perform better with a low ride height, and we simply can’t get closer to where our rivals are. To be honest, I have no idea how long it will take,” he admitted.

« Of course, we have information, we continue to learn. At the moment, we are moving forward step by step, so we have to take bigger leaps and cover more distance. We are struggling to find that silver bullet that will solve all our problems […]. But like I said, it’s easier said than done. » concluded the British.