Lewis Hamilton, a British driver for the Mercedes AMG F1 team, competed in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka on April 6, 2024. Mercedes recently unveiled their new Formula 1 car for the 2024 season, which has significantly more downforce in the corners compared to its predecessor. Surprisingly, this increase in downforce did not translate into faster lap times. Despite their dominance in previous seasons, Mercedes has been struggling since the introduction of ground effect cars in 2022, with only one victory to their name. Team principal Toto Wolff revealed that they are facing a fundamental issue correlating wind tunnel data with on-track performance. In the recent Japanese Grand Prix, Mercedes cars finished in seventh and ninth places, but Wolff noted that the poor performance at the start of the race masked the progress they had made. When asked if Mercedes had discovered anything that could improve their performance in future races, Wolff humorously replied, « Put the rear tires in the rear and the front tires in the front! » He explained that the complexity of the car’s setup and balance is a challenge for the team, and they have reached a point where they need to try something different. Despite measuring an increase in downforce in certain corners, lap times did not improve, which is puzzling for the team. Lewis Hamilton had previously mentioned that Mercedes had to remove 90 points of downforce from their 2022 car to address handling issues, but Wolff clarified that the current situation is different. Although the downforce is there, they are unable to extract the expected performance from it. This discrepancy between simulations and actual performance has left the team baffled.
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