Mercedes claims "it would be wrong to say that the porpoising issue has disappeared" after the 2022 F1 Spanish GP

Despite its strong form at the Spanish GP, Mercedes does not believe that it has remedied its car's porpoising issue. Chief Strategist James Vowles believes the porpoising could vary from track to track.

Speaking to F1TV, he said:

“We’ve had one race out of six where the car has been well behaved. It was a car that really was a proper racing car for once. We could set it up, we could tune it, we could play around with the settings and it would respond in a way that was predictable and the same couldn’t be said for the car that we had for the first five races of the season. However, we have to temper our expectations. It’s one track and a track that has suited our car for many years prior to this one. There is a lot for us to understand and learn.”

The Mercedes strategist claimed that it would be unwise to rule out the porpoising issue entirely. He believes that the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya suited the W13, which made it easier to resolve some of the porpoising. However, he remains optimistic and said that they were able to understand a lot in Barcelona and could build on this knowledge to further develop their car.

Vowles said:

“I think it would be wrong to say that the porpoising issue has disappeared. I think you still see it on our competitors and I am sure there will be elements of it coming back again as we build on our understanding and the foundations that we laid down in Barcelona. What I can say is we made a definitive step, a step in our understanding and the deployment of what we put on track. And we can build on that, and the same could not be said about the first five races with the car that we had there.”

Mercedes scored a P3 and P5 finish last weekend in the Spanish GP.

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Mercedes claims its engine overheating issues were caused by the extreme ambient temperatures in Spain

Chief Strategist James Vowles explained a large reason for the Mercedes engine overheating in the Spanish GP was the extremely hot ambient temperatures. Towards the end of the race, both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were warned of a potential DNF if they accelerated too much and were asked to lift and coast instead.

The Mercedes strategist explained:

“We were very, very hot on our power unit side. To give some context, the ambient temperature was up to 37 degrees (Celsius) in the race, it started around about 36 and actually went up later in the afternoon. That is incredibly warm, that’s an outlier relative to nearly every circuit on the calendar. The drivers had to respond and the way you do this is by looking after the power unit, making sure your nose is in clear air, making sure you are doing lots of lift and coast where effectively you are lifting off the throttle before applying the brakes at the end of the long straights.”

He praised the drivers for bringing the car home. He said:

“And they did a really good job to get those cars home to the finish. Remember that, for them, they are fighting for every single millisecond and point but on top of that, having to deal with alarms coming up on the dash telling them they are too warm and an amount of lift and coast that was varying lap by lap.”

Although Mercedes looked stronger in Spain, Monaco could be a challenging track. The team is motivated by its comeback and expects to unlock more performance in the upcoming races. The team has made a bold claim that it could still win the 2022 championship.