"We are right where the music plays"- Mercedes in 'right balance' at 2022 F1 Dutch GP, claims Toto Wolff

Mercedes dominated Friday's first practice session ahead of the 2022 F1 Dutch Grand Prix. Although the Ferraris took the top spot in FP2, Lewis Hamilton showed quite some pace and set the third-fastest lap time.

While Mercedes continue to chase their first race win of the season, team boss Toto Wolff seems optimistic about the upcoming race, emphasizing that the team is "right where the music plays". He also revealed that the team has understood what goes behind the fluctuations in the car's performance on different tracks, claiming that the only way around it is to find the "right balance".

In a conversation with Sky F1 at the end of Friday's practice sessions, Wolff was asked about the relative difference in the pace of the Mercedes from one circuit to another. He answered, saying:

“Yeah, it is a little bit like that. We understand now why that is and you can see it’s all about getting the car in the right balance, be it aerodynamically, also grip wise. Spa was an outlier in terms of what our car was like. Here is one of the better circuits and you can see we are right where the music plays, but let’s see what happens tomorrow.”

He added:

“I think it’s more a question of things you don’t see on the car rather than what you see. It’s obvious we have a narrow sidepod concept and in some other things, the rear floor sticking out more than on the other cars, and certainly that will play a role. But much more important is how have we developed the car to run where low on the floor we can’t run it and what does it do to our suspension kinematic, and this is why at the moment it’s just a little bit of trial and error.”

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Lewis Hamilton admits Mercedes still struggle with bouncing

Mercedes got off to a rough start in the 2022 F1 season with major porpoising issues that the team seems to have tackled over time. While they are yet to secure a win this year, the Silver Arrows have made significant progress over the season. Lewis Hamilton set the top three lap times on Friday and seemed cautiously optimistic heading into qualifying and the main race on Sunday.

As reported by GPFans, the Briton revealed his expectations from the weekend in Zandvoort, saying:

“This track is a lot more aggressive on the tyres so getting tyre temperature in is probably easier than somewhere like Budapest which is a lot smoother. But I don’t know, too early to say but we have been much closer than we have ever really been. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, we just continue to do what we are doing - we still have some problems with bouncing and some things like that so we have to work on that tonight. I am hoping that if we can make the progress we usually make from FP1 to Saturday, that would be awesome for tomorrow.”

Mercedes currently stand third in the constructors' standings with 316 points to their name.