Mercedes has conceded to fresh doubts about its Spa new floor off the back of its struggles at last weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.
The German manufacturer introduced its latest upgraded floor at the Belgian GP, but it was removed from the car after some confusing results from Friday practice.
The team was convinced about the floor’s potential though and, following back-to-back evaluations in practice at the Dutch GP, it committed to racing with it for the remainder of the Zandvoort weekend.
However, a disappointing performance throughout the event, as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished well adrift of race winner Lando Norris, has again prompted some questions about whether or not there could be some issues with the latest design.
While the team’s data and on-track analysis show the new floor does indeed produce more downforce than the previous specification, technical director James Allison has suggested that it could have brought with it some negative balance characteristics – which costs more lap time than it gains.
Speaking in Mercedes’ regular post-race debrief video, Allison said the team was working hard to try to get an understanding of the role the new floor is playing in changing the car characteristics.
Asked how the floor was performing, Allison said: “Simple answer is, we don't fully know.
“You can take some straightforward measurements and say that the downforce it was supposed to deliver looked like it was there. So at one level, you could take comfort that it worked as expected.
“But a lot of the pace of the cars in this year, particularly, is down to how well they handle. So it's not just a question of ‘does your aero package deliver you downforce’, but is it delivering you the balanced car that you need through the corners? Is it delivering you the balanced car you need from high speed to low speed?
“We definitely know that we didn't have a well-balanced car this weekend. That's where most of our pace went. Whether that was the new floor, the new aero package or not, we need to keep an open mind and something we will need to revisit in future races.
“Right now, we know it measured the downforce, but we're not certain that it delivered good balance. Something we need to investigate as we go on through the year.”
The disappointing qualifying performances of both Russell and Hamilton were impacted by poor balance in Zandvoort – which had the consequence of overheating the tyres.
“We, for whatever reason, managed to produce a car that was too on a knife edge,” added Allison.
“It was too ready to snap at the rear, for the rear to lose grip and contact with the road when the drivers are trying to hustle it. And qualifying is when they need to lean on the car and we could get a really good lap if they just managed to keep this very pointy car sort of on rails.
“Just the tiniest slip of the rear caused by a gust, caused by whatever, and then the rear tyres will light up. The temperature of the surface of the rubber goes up dramatically just with one tiny little slip.
“As soon as that surface temperature is up, it doesn't recover for several corners. The corners come at you thick and fast in Zandvoort and there's not really any long straights for them to cool down on. And so one snap, that's your lap gone.”
