New W15 floor upgrade leaves Mercedes with ‘difficult question’ after more investigations

Updating the W15 at the Belgian Grand Prix, Andrew Shovlin says they weren’t expecting massive gains from the package but after Monza they need to assess whether it’s changed the “handling characteristics” of the car.

Lewis Hamilton lamented Mercedes’ lack of pace at the Italian Grand Prix, the third event in which they were running the new floor and diffuser that they introduced at Spa.

Mercedes never expected ‘very large gain’ with Spa upgrade

Telling the media including PlanetF1.com that Mercedes “just didn’t have the pace”, he explained that they had “more degradation, and just generally, we were lacking one or two-tenths in the race .”

Fifth and seventh with Hamilton ahead of George Russell, it marked Mercedes’ second race off the podium with the team having previously recorded a six-race streak that included three victories.

The positive in all this is that Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, says the upgrades have increased the car’s overall downforce.

“Over the last three races, we’ve done various compares of the packages and principally comparing the floor, and what we are confident in is that it’s generating the load that we expect,” he said Mercedes’ post-Monza debrief.

“How do we know that? We’re measuring the forces that it generates on the road through the suspension.

“We are also looking at the pressures that are generated across the car, and we can correlate that with what we’re seeing in the wind tunnel, and that allows us to get a pretty decent read on whether it’s doing what we expect.

“It’s important to note this was not a very large gain that we were expecting, it was quite a small package that we introduced, but we’re confident that it is generating that load.”

The big stats in F1 2024

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ standings after the Italian Grand Prix

Shovlin reveals ‘difficult question’ Mercedes have to ask

It has, however, left them with one big question to answer. Have the updates changed the characteristics of the car?

Although Hamilton said the car had been “feeling so much better” on Saturday at Monza, he uncharacteristically made several mistakes in qualifying that cost him tenths. George Russell, meanwhile, called for changes as Mercedes didn’t have the “pace to fight with Ferrari and McLaren” in the Grand Prix.

Shovlin concedes Mercedes now have to ask the “difficult question” of whether there’s “anything subtle in the handling characteristics that this package might be doing that we haven’t anticipated.

“And that’s quite difficult to assess, because the car will perform differently track-to-track, some tracks it’s been working very well. Other circuits we’ve struggled with the balance of the car regardless of the aerodynamic spec, and yes, the last two races haven’t been as good as some of the one’s that preceded it.

“It may well be that’s just the normal variation from track-to-track, but that’s what we’re going to be looking at over the next few days, and on top of that there are other updates that we’re bringing into the system.

“There’s quite a lot for us to consider, but we do have a lot of data now, and we can go off and use the next few days to learn what we can from that.”

Mercedes remain fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 292 points on the board, 115 behind third-placed Ferrari.

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