Revived Mercedes is relishing the fightback: 'It's nice to be the challenger'

The Barcelona performance grew out of two things – ongoing work back at the factory to understand set-up and the porpoising issues, and the parallel programme of planned development that saw the team introduce an upgrade package, albeit one that wasn’t as significant as that at Ferrari.

There were modifications to the front endplates and the floor edge, and a new bib vane added to the keel. Meanwhile Hamilton and Russell both took new PUs on Friday, and a fresh engine always provided a little extra performance.

The fact that the aero parts seemed to work was good news for technical director Mike Elliott, still relatively fresh in a job he took over last year, and inevitably in the wars somewhat in recent months. He’s tried to draw positives from the experience.

“I guess, for me, I’m fairly new as a technical director, so it’s a huge challenge,” he explained in Spain.

“I think we’ve been lucky enough to be right at the front for a pretty big period of time, and to now find ourselves chasing is a challenge.

“It’s also quite a lifting one, it’s quite nice to be the challenger, to be coming from behind. I think there’s a chunk of pressure, because there’s always going.

“But I think from my point of view as a technical director, what’s been amazing to see is the amount of effort that’s gone in at the factory – in aerodynamics, in vehicle dynamics, to see how we make the best of it, and in design and production to bring the parts that we’ve brought here.

“So this is a challenge, this is what engineers love. I think it’s been a healthy challenge, and one we’re enjoying.”

Elliott confirmed that the Barcelona upgrades focused both on general performance gains, as well as the dreaded porpoising: “There is the normal development of the car that you would do anyway, and then I think we’ve done quite a bit of work to try and understand the bouncing effects, to work out how we best mitigate those. And we’ve brought bits that definitely settled the car down.”

When you’re struggling you have to crunch the numbers and find leads wherever you can. Intriguingly Elliott confirmed that the mixed weekend in Miami – and loss of form after Friday – provided some useful information.

It’s no secret that for all teams the key is to be able to run the car lower without porpoising becoming impossible for the drivers to deal with.

“I think after Miami, we went and had a very good look through the data to try to understand what happened between Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I think there’s a few clues came out of that,” he says.

“We’re definitely able to run the car in a position much closer to where we’d ideally run it. So there’s a chunk of downforce that comes from that, and the car just is a lot more settled.

“The drivers look happy now. The body language coming from them that says that they feel the car feels a bit more like a race car.”

“In terms of the overall car concept, I think it’s still a little bit too early to say. I think we’ve changed the car so much for this weekend. We need to work out how we get the best out of it. We need to work out what more lap time there is in it, and then then do the assessment as to whether we think, overall, this is a better direction to develop in.

“There’s a budget cap that’s quite constraining and as a consequence of that, you have to make good decisions about both what we do for the rest of this year but also what we do for next year.”

The cost cap and its impact on R&D is a huge issue for teams and will only become more pressing as the season goes on. That’s why there’s such a push from certain parties to have a boost to the cap ceiling to account for inflation.

It’s arguably been harder for Mercedes than its two main rivals because the team has been distracted by the porpoising fire-fighting exercise, instead of being able to focus totally on creating go-faster bits.

“And while the ATR increase will be an advantage, it’s probably not the game changer it might be. I think more to the point is we’ve just got to get on top of our issues and get the car moving in the right direction.”

It’s not been an easy start to 2022 for the team and its two drivers, and especially for Hamilton, who missed out on last year’s title at the very last minute.

“I think he’s got a tough team-mate in George, and that’s brilliant for the team. And I think if you look at the first five races, unfortunately, Lewis has been on the wrong end of some safety car timing, but I think going forward, I couldn’t want for two better drivers.

“They’re really helping us develop the car, move it in the right direction and if we can give him a car that they can compete with, I’m sure they’re both going to push really hard, and hopefully Lewis can win another championship.”

So does the team really have the belief that it can fight for the title?

“Of course, we wouldn’t be here otherwise, would we?,” said Elliott. “I think that’s the nature of sport. I think that until it’s mathematically over, it’s not over. We’re not a huge distance behind, and if we can get the car into a position where we’re competitive, and hopefully out in front, then there’s every chance.

“But, you know, we’ve got to have a level of humility. [Red Bull] have made a really good start, Ferrari have made a really good start, and they’re not going to be easy to chase down.”