"One swallow doesn’t make a summer" - Mercedes boss says team 'not yet there' at the front despite strong showing at 2022 F1 Canadian GP

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is not getting carried away despite his team's strong showing at the 2022 F1 Canadian GP.

Lewis Hamilton scored his first podium since the season opener in Bahrain with a P3 finish in Montréal. Mercedes teammate George Russell crossed the line just behind him in P4.

Despite this solid haul of points on a day when Red Bull driver Sergio Perez had to retire and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc had to fight from the bottom of the grid, Toto Wolff is not taking anything for granted.

Speaking in an interview with GPFans after the race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Austrian said:

“One swallow doesn’t make a summer. We saw that swallow in Barcelona but somehow it flew somewhere else! We need to be careful. We were off the pace on Friday. In the wet we were good, I think that was respectable, and at times on Sunday, we were with the quickest cars.”

Wolff went on to add, saying:

“In the second stint, Lewis [Hamilton] and George [Russell] were almost matching the front-runners, not quite but on some laps yes, and that is very encouraging to see. But we just need to be careful. There is so much work we need to do in order to be back at the front and we are not yet there.”

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"We can't go any higher" - Lewis Hamilton refutes claims Mercedes can reduce porpoising by raising their ride height

Lewis Hamilton is adamant that porpoising cannot be solved merely by having the ride height of the new F1 cars raised and admitted that Mercedes cannot go any higher.

The Briton's comments came after the FIA announced a new set of technical directives following the 2022 F1 Azerbaijan GP that forces teams to ensure driver safety by raising their ride height if a certain level of porpoising is experienced.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the 2022 F1 Canadian GP, the seven-time world champion said:

“So in the last race and previous races, we have raised the car and you still have bouncing. Porpoising is more about the flow structure underneath the car. So we’ve run the car very high, most of the season. And it’s not until Barcelona that we started to be able to get it a little bit lower. We had no bouncing for the first time in Barcelona, except for in the high-speed corners. And then it appeared again in Monaco and in Baku, so we had to raise the car again. But even when we raise the car, this thing still bounces. And we can’t go any higher actually.”

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes are now focused on the 2022 F1 British GP, a race the Briton has won eight times in his career so far.