According to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, the team has lost about eight to ten months of development time due to the porpoising. The bumps were a big problem especially at the start of the year, at the moment the teams seem to have it under control.
Mercedes caused a stir with the innovative W13. The team’s car has very narrow sidepods, but it also suffered a lot from the bump due to the design. In the end, the team managed to get the bounce under control, but the team boss reveals that it took quite a bit of development time. If he had to make an estimate, it would come down to a loss of up to ten months, he says at Autosport.com.
Challenge
Not all teams were caught off guard by the bumping. For example, Red Bull Racing was able to participate in the season almost without any hiccups and that raised the necessary questions from the competition. Mercedes was used to fighting for the win, but the bounce prevented the team from working directly on the speed of the car and the bumping also raised a big question mark. The team did not immediately know how to tackle the porpoising.
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Red Bull Racing has since been crowned world champion and the difference between the RB18 and the W13 is significant. “We believe we understand where the gap comes from,” explains Wolff, who would now know how to get the speed out of the car. “She [Red Bull] will carry some of their benefits of the car into next year, and we may have lost eight to ten months of development because we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So we have a big challenge ahead of us,” said Wolff.
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