Mercedes’ Dutch GP Struggles: Was the New Floor to Blame? Toto Wolff Calls for Urgent Analysis

Did Mercedes' new floor cause problems at the F1 Dutch Grand Prix?

Team principal Toto Wolff stated that Mercedes must investigate the issues encountered at Zandvoort.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has acknowledged that their disappointing showing at the F1 Dutch Grand Prix could be attributed to the new floor design of their car.

After discarding a new floor design after Friday's practice session at the last race in Belgium, Mercedes decided to use the updated version at Zandvoort, where the team faced a challenging weekend.

George Russell was puzzled after dropping from fourth to seventh place in Sunday's grand prix. He finished just ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who managed to improve his position despite a poor qualifying session that had him eliminated in Q2.

This highlighted a significant shift in performance for Mercedes. Entering the latter part of the season, they were the leading team in Formula 1, having secured victories in three of the last four races.

According to Wolff, speaking to the media including Crash.net at Zandvoort, "These cars can be unpredictable at times. We've managed to secure six consecutive podium finishes, which is quite different from the car we had three weeks ago that finished first and second, at least the first-place finish was well-deserved."

Achieving an outcome like this typically involves significant factors. We need to investigate the situation thoroughly over the coming days before Monza. Was there an issue with something we added to the car? Or did we design an element that negatively impacted performance?

"How do you explain the inconsistent performance? At times, we performed quite well over the weekend, but today, the degradation was clearly not up to par."

According to Wolff, one reason for Mercedes' difficulties was the restricted amount of time spent running during practice.

On Friday, we tested the update kit back-to-back, but by the end of it, we were left with limited data. We had installed the update kit on the car in Spa and then removed it again,” he explained.

"Clearly, the limited amount of running, like everyone else experienced, may have led to making incorrect decisions regarding the car. Thus, several factors might have played a role in this lack of performance."

When questioned about his concerns regarding the floor's performance, Wolff responded, "I don't want to make any hasty judgments just yet. We plan to examine it over the next few days and aim to uncover insights from the data."

"Could it have been a deliberate setup? Was the track responsible? What exactly did we miscalculate? Did the car's flooring play a role? Or was it a combination of all these factors?"

"Hopefully, we can address the issues before Monza and regain our competitive edge. However, the fluctuation in our performance from first and second places to seventh and eighth is significant. In my view, this isn't just a matter of setup choices."

Lewis Hamilton, who has won the world championship seven times, expressed worries regarding Mercedes' newest upgrade following the race.

"The car didn't seem to perform as well as it did in the previous race, and I'm not sure why," he remarked.

“We need to investigate if our upgrade is effective; we'll have to wait and observe the results.”

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