"If we could just magically make that issue vanish" – Mercedes claims removing porpoising is their 'priority number one'

Mercedes claim that tackling the porpoising problem is still their number one priority moving forward into the 2022 season. The team has had a disappointing start to the season, failing to challenge Ferrari and Red Bull so far.

Red Bull and Ferrari are the teams to beat so far in 2022, with Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen having won the first and second races of the season respectively. The German team's progress in the new season has been significantly hampered by the new porpoising problem caused due to the 2022 aero regulations. The team claims they haven't seen the W13's true performance as it is plagued heavily with porpoising problems.

Mercedes' head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin told Motorsport.com about the team's priority list going forward, saying:

“That’s [porpoising] probably priority number one. Because that’s ultimately preventing us from running the car where we’d like to run it for optimum performance. What we don’t know is, if we could just magically make that issue vanish, where would we actually be in terms of car pace: is the car fast enough or not? And it’s very difficult to answer that question.”

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Mercedes' Toto Wolff claims there are many parts in the W13 that don't work

Silver Arrows' team principal Toto Wolff claims the team's issue is not singular and that many parts aren't functioning as they ought to. Mercedes had a disappointing outing in the qualifying sessions at the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite trimming their rear wings.

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton missed out on Q2 for the first time since Brazil 2017 during the qualifying session of the race in Jeddah. The Briton, however, managed to score one point in the main race with a P10 finish.

Speaking to the media after the qualifying session, Wolff spoke about the team's problems in Saudi Arabia, saying:

“We had a lower drag rear wing. We took the gurney [flap] off but still it wasn’t enough to shave more drag off. This isn’t a single problem. We have many parts of the car that don’t work, we don’t understand or they don’t work well enough.”

Former Williams driver George Russell claims Mercedes will not be able to fight for the title this year if they do not find a fix for their current problems. He told the media:

“It’s two races. We’re definitely not out of it but if we don’t manage to find some improvements there’s no way we’ll be in with a shot of fighting for this championship. We’re definitely not giving up, we have come away from the first two races as the third-best team.”

Only time will tell if the Silver Arrows will be able to solve the numerous issues that have plagued their cars so far in the new season. As it looks right now, Mercedes have a long way to go before they threaten to challenge Ferrari and Red Bull.