George Russell has backed up Lewis Hamilton’s comments about Mercedes, stating their rivals are a “step ahead” after testing.
On Saturday, the seven-time world champion ruled out fighting for wins at this point of the year as the team struggles to optimise the potential of the radical W13.
Despite a bold design with minimal sidepods, Mercedes’ main issue remains porpoising, when the car bounces at high speed as the ground effect downforce coming from the underfloor tunnels stalls.
“We’re exploring a range of set-up options to try and improve the bouncing,” said trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin.
Que aspero para manejar se ve el W13. Porpoising bastante extremo en recta e inestable en las curvas. Pero igual es Mercedes…#F1 #F1Testing #MercedesAMGF1pic.twitter.com/EW1ld1E7JR
— El Mejor del Resto ? (@elmejordelresto) March 11, 2022
“We have some directions that are able to improve this but finding the right balance between the bouncing and performance is clearly the challenge.
“We still have lots of work ahead of us but the car has been running reliably which has helped us get good mileage in and run our programme.”
As a result of the porpoising issue, Russell believes Mercedes heads into the season-opener next weekend third fastest at best.
“I think it’s been pretty productive, very intriguing,” he said of the test overall. “Obviously it’s clear what some of the teams face with the bouncing and [we are] just trying to get on top of that really.
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“I think it depends how hard you are pushing the car and we are trying to get every last bit of performance out of it and trying to test those limits.
“But it’s definitely bouncing around a lot from within – it’s not the comfiest, in all honesty. I don’t really care about comfort if the performance is there but at the moment the performance isn’t there.
“We do seem a step behind our rivals and we have a lot of work to do between now and next week to understand because, in every condition, the Red Bull and Ferrari seem a step ahead of us.”
However, Russell did suggest the gap wasn’t one Mercedes couldn’t overcome eventually.
“I don’t think they are exceptional, I think we are probably not as competitive as we would like,” he added.
“I think Ferrari and Red Bull are in the sort of natural position – their delta to the front of the midfield and to the back is probably correct, we are just a little bit further behind than we would like.
“But I believe the performance is there somewhere, we just have to find it.
“As it stands, Red Bull are looking incredibly strong, Ferrari are looking really solid and we have some work to do.”