Toto Wolff explains how Mercedes hope to find 'quite some laptime' with W13 updates

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By George Dagless

Published Apr 29, 2022

Toto Wolff has said that he feels there is 'quite some laptime' to be unlocked with the Mercedes W13, providing that they can sort their continued issues with porpoising.

AUSTIN, TEXAS - NOVEMBER 02: Mercedes GP Executive Director Toto Wolff walks in the Paddock before final practice for the F1 Grand Prix of USA at Circuit of The Americas on November 02, 2019 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Toto Wolff has said that he feels there is 'quite some laptime' to be unlocked with the Mercedes W13, providing that they can sort their continued issues with porpoising.

The reigning Formula 1 Constructors' champions look set to lose their title this season with them off of the pace of the Red Bull and Ferrari cars.

Indeed, it's simply not worked out for the Silver Arrows with their W13 car, and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell will naturally be disappointed as they'll have hoped to be title challengers.

Mercedes have the resources and knowledge required to eventually get them out of this hole, though, and Wolff believes if they can solve their porpoising problems they'll suddenly see a real jump in performance:

“We very much believe that the science we are putting in at the moment will help us to, in effect, run the car lower. It is where we believe we have all the aerodynamic goodness, but we haven’t been able to unlock it because of the bottoming of the car. If we are able to get on top of that, that means there’s quite some laptime we can find. If not, we need to have another idea.

“The fundamental issue that, in a way, overshadows everything, is that our car is porpoising more than others. Because of the bouncing, we are not able to run it where it should run, and that has huge ramifications on the set-up, on the tyre grip, etc, etc, etc. So one is interlinked to the other. I think if we get on top of the porpoising we would unlock much more in terms of performance on the car.

IMOLA, ITALY - APRIL 22: Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W13 on track during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari on April 22, 2022 in Imola, Italy. (Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

“If we don’t get on top of that, there are more conventional development paths that we have not yet taken. I want to give us the time to really properly take such a decision.”

That's optimistic enough from Wolff but, even so, the Silver Arrows are still struggling badly with porpoising, to the extent that George Russell said he was getting chest and back pain at Imola from it.

Time will only tell how they solve the problem...