After having estimated that the current concept without pontoon of the W13 can have a future (read article here), Toto Wolff wished to clarify his remarks.
The Mercedes Formula 1 boss has not ruled out a return to an older car specification which is “much slower on paper” even if the team is “still attached to the current concept”.
“I want to clarify what I said about our concept without sidepods. I’m not ruling out the possibility, but we have to give the benefit of the doubt to all those people who have created great F1 cars in the past, and we think that’s the way to go. But if we have to abandon this concept and go back, we will.”
“Once again, the next race in Barcelona will allow us to correlate the data we collected in February with the old concept and get new data with our car as it is now.
“I’m tired of always repeating the same thing, that we have to collect data and do experiments. That’s our situation now. But it’s physics, not magic. I’m sorry for those who think that we have a wand that allows you to arrive on a circuit and say ‘hop, it will work’. It’s not like that in F1.
When asked if Barcelona’s upgrades will be inspired by Ferrari or Red Bull, Wolff is clear.
“We don’t look at the neighbor’s wife wondering if she’s better than ours, because what we have isn’t so bad. In fact, before we decide to go back to the old concept, we have to understand what which didn’t work on this one. What are the good sides of this concept and what are its flaws?”
“We are the only ones who can answer this question, but I would say that we will have to ask it after Barcelona once we have access to the correlation.”
“That’s when you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Are we wrong or not?’ This is the question that will have to be answered because we have to think about the car of 2023.”
The bouncing problem cannot be reproduced on the simulator or in the wind tunnel, but Mercedes had planned experiments this weekend to correlate some modeling work done to try and get the problem under control.
Until this is achieved, Wolff said Mercedes “was sailing a bit in the fog”.
“Obviously this car has potential. But we don’t know how to unlock it. It’s a very difficult car to drive because it’s always on the limit, and the right performance window is tricky to find. Dissecting the information is a tedious process because it is very long, and the data does not always reveal the problems that the pilots talk about.”
“They certainly have a car in their hands that is neither comfortable nor predictable to drive. And that, the data does not tell you. no correlation between what we see on the screen and the return of our pilots. All that makes the situation even more complicated.”