Hamilton’s floor explanation ‘not main reason’ for Mercedes’ Brazil slump – Wolff
Lewis Hamilton suspects that an error in the installation of Mercedes’ recently introduced new floor design was behind the sharp drop in performance at the Brazilian GP.
But team principal Toto Wolff believes that is only part of the explanation for a miserable weekend that saw Hamilton finish a humble eighth at the Grand Prix.
Mercedes presented its new floor two weeks earlier at the US GP. The team performed well at the Circuit of the Americas, with Hamilton finishing two seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
However, his car failed post-race inspection and he was disqualified from the Grand Prix. Mercedes admitted they didn’t get their set-up right during the one-hour practice sessions of the sprint weekend. A week later in Mexico, where three practice sessions helped, Hamilton finished second again.
But after their poor performance in Brazil, another sprint event, Hamilton suspected they might have gone wrong with their floor.
“I think the floor doesn’t work and the floor doesn’t go down, so it just forced us to go to a higher wing [back corner],” he said. “I feel like we’re massively brutal in the straights and we’re losing so much time and there’s nothing I can do about it. “So we’re just sliding around the corners. So we have to figure out why it’s on this rough road.”
He believes the W14 lineup explains why he finished more than a minute behind Verstappen at Interlagos. “I’m sure there’s something in the lineup that we could have done a little better. But whether that meant we were higher, I can’t say.
Wolff admitted the team made some compromises in managing the floor, but believes other factors played a role.
“We drove the car too high and you know you carry on [from the first practice],” he said. “But that was not the main reason for an absolute weekend in terms of performance.
“Something is wrong mechanically. Or rather, it is not the rear wing and the car is not a little, a little too high – because we are talking about a millimeter, two, it is performance, but it is not an explanation for a perfect free. [weekend] .
He said the changes in the car’s performance between successive race weekends were “mysterious”.
“From a really fast car, best balanced or really balanced. Our drivers are satisfied with the nightmare. How is that even possible?
“What’s not right? I wouldn’t be surprised if we analyze the cars in the next few days and find there was a mechanical problem with their set-up, although I don’t know what it could be.
Mercedes were so far off the pace in Brazil that they even considered putting their car in to change the setup. But Wolff said they were not sure they could improve their car’s performance enough to justify giving up their GP places.
“We basically didn’t know where we would have changed it because there’s a much bigger problem,” he said. “We thought about it, but when we thought about maximizing points, it was probably the right way to start.”
