Mercedes even fought for the win in England with Lewis Hamilton. Andrew Shovlin, director of track engineering, said the updates brought to Silverstone are a continuation of the development done on the W13 in Barcelona
Everything indicates that Mercedes has finally found the light at the end of the tunnel in the development of the W13 after a "literally fighting to survive" start to the 2022 Formula 1 season. At last Sunday's British GP, Lewis Hamilton put himself as one of the real contenders for victory, fighting with Ferrari and Red Bull, and the Englishman's performance gave the team the assurance that the updates promoted for the weekend at Silverstone put it on the right track.
After the race, Andrew Shovlin, director of track engineering, spoke about Mercedes' early-year struggle with the car's quirks and how Barcelona, host of the sixth round, represented the beginning of the turnaround. "In the first few races, we were literally struggling to survive, and the drivers struggling with an incredibly difficult car to work with. But we managed to score points, taking advantage of the opportunities that arose when the others were not so reliable."
"Barcelona was useful for us because our car didn't bounce around there as much as at other circuits. The three street tracks in a row, however, highlighted another weakness, so we are just dealing with that: looking for the problems to solve them with our engineering concepts. But I would say that the path we want to take is becoming clearer and clearer, and that's encouraging from a development point of view," added Shovlin.
The Spanish GP was eagerly awaited by many, especially the base at Brackley because it is a traditional test track. And it was there that Mercedes, according to Toto Wolff, managed to leave the ghost of porpoising - the clicking sounds the cars give at high speeds as a result of the ground effect - behind. The races in Monaco, Baku, and Montreal, however, brought a new issue: the bouncing was now caused by the stiffness of the car.
The next package of updates would then be tested at Silverstone, and what we saw was a much more stable W13, with almost no bouncing. "This update was the first from the line we started developing in Barcelona," Shovlin explained, pointing out that the main aerodynamic changes were concentrated on the car's floor.
"In terms of concept, we changed the car quite a bit from the start, even though by far it is quite similar to what we had in the first round. But it's a very different beast now," he assured when asked by the British magazine Autosport.
"We changed the concept in Barcelona to try to solve some of those jumps. And although this problem aroused a lot of interest at the beginning, especially because we were behind in the pack, I think that here [at Silverstone] we came close to solving it," he added, stressing that although Mercedes is still not the best team in the current grid, it is far from being the worst.
"I think we've made progress. It's a stiffer car than we would like, but certainly a car we can work with. Finally, Shovlin talked about how keeping the car as close to the ground as possible is still the big challenge for Mercedes, so the team has been looking to generate more downforce with the higher car.
"From day one, under this regulation, the challenge would be to generate downforce with the car higher. That is one of the points we would like to develop, but we are continuing in that direction," Shovlin concluded.