The 2022 Formula One Season has been a season for the Mercedes AMG Petronas to forget up till now. The W13 Mercedes car has been struggling to get to grips with the new regulations. This season the team started way behind the rest and has only know started to draw level with the other top teams. This has taken them 6 months of non stop development seeing how much of a handicap they had.
When you realise that the Mercedes team has not only been fighting all the other teams, but also the FIA over the last few years. The FIA have wanted to grow the sports popularity so having one team dominating, winning 8 constructors titles in a row didn't help. This year regulations removed Mercedes strength being downforce by removing 30% of the underfloor. This was where Mercedes dominated the others and that advantage vanished overnight.
Expect to see Mercedes on the podium tomorrow as they have race pace.
We knew things would take time ,but never knew when the season started that it would take 15 races to start challenging for the podium. Mercedes has been struggling with the porpoising and race pace. Back in March at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Hamilton qualified in 16th place being knocked out in Qualifying one. Everyone knew back than how much work Mercedes had to do to catch the leaders as the gulf was huge.
Finding the sweet spot when you have no clue what the car is going to do is virtually impossible to achieve. During the practice sessions the team was gathering data as that is what drives the end results and improvements including upgrades. One weekend the car would look like it was faster with less up and down movements (porpoising) followed by the next week an undriveable car.
The FIA had crippled Mercedes with these regulation changes as the porpoising never reflected in the simulator. Teams like Red Bull and Ferrari had never really mastered downforce like Mercedes had, but benefitted when these regulations happened as they achieved downforce in other areas. When Mercedes lost 60% of their downforce others only lost 20-30%. Throw in a bouncing car and you have a serious setback.
The FIA stepped in just before the summer break questioning why some cars were still bouncing and others had solved the problem. Ferrari and Red Bull had "solved" this problem early in the season which turned out by using a disappearing floor block which was a breach of the regulations as it was a moving part. This is a major factor why all of a sudden Mercedes are now back in the podium mix and expect much closer racing between the top 3 for the remaining 7 races.
This is good news for Mercedes as having overcome all of these problems they can now work on next seasons car. We know as a team they have dominated the sport on the technical side as their track record shows this. With no other regulation changes happening next season I do expect Mercedes to return to dominating the sport finding their sweet spot.
The sport has been fighting the Mercedes team for years trying to handicap them through regulation changes. This type of season was bound to happen as at some point your advantages will be reduced making you start from scratch. Next season Mercedes will basically be level pegging with the others and they wont be level for long knowing what this team is capable of.