The True Power of Mercedes' F1 Car Has Been Unleashed

After a bleak start to the season, Mercedes is finally seeing progress with its troubled W13 car to halve the gap to its biggest rivals. 
Written by Allison Stone
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
In the cutthroat world of
Formula One
racing, Red Bull and Ferrari rule the road, but German automaker
Mercedes
has been working hard to iron out the kinks with its W13 car. 
The W13 recently underwent a series of changes following a development push in Spain, and according to
Motorsport
, saw results that are looking optimistic. 
Early on in the season, Mercedes drivers were struggling to get through races with a car that has numerous problems, but things are finally shifting in their favor. Read on with the car ownership experts at
Jerry
to learn more about Mercedes’ plan for the rest of the season. 

Mercedes had a bumpy start to the season

“In the first few races, we were literally just sort of fighting to survive,” said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin as reported by Motorsport, “and the drivers were fighting to survive with a car that was incredibly difficult to work with.”
Instead of giving up, the Mercedes team looked closely at the struggles its drivers were experiencing and used them as a starting point to improve their cars. 
“A recent run of three street tracks highlighted another weakness and, to be honest, we're just going through it: looking for the problems, and then we'll try and apply our engineering skills to solving them,” said Shovlin. 
According to
Formula1.com
, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff believes his team has “halved the gap over the last few months” to rivals Red Bull and Ferrari.
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A change of concept for the Mercedes W13

The key factor in Mercedes’ struggles has been the management of airflow underneath and around the floor of the car. The car was suffering from serious porpoising and bouncing issues, but the previous changes didn’t see much improvement until recently. 
A month ago, things were looking bleak as Mercedes was testing tons of different set-ups for the W13. “It's just a monumental fight the whole time to keep it out of the wall,” said driver Lewis Hamilton to
Formula1.com
“When it bounces, when the car leaves the ground a lot, and then when it lands it grips up and it goes in different directions,” Hamilton continued. 
While the new changes made may not be visibly obvious, the car is conceptually very different from the first version. 
“In terms of the concept of the car, we've actually changed our car an awful lot since it first ran,” said Shovlin. “Even though if you look at it from a distance it looks quite similar to what we had at round one aerodynamically, it is quite a different beast now.”
The new generation of Mercedes cars is attempting to produce peak levels of downforce with a ride height as high as possible. Currently, the W13 is still too low and has too stiff of a suspension, but Shovlin remains hopeful for future races. 
“It does look like we are running low, and that is one of the things that we'd like to develop. But we're making progress in that direction,” said Shovlin. 
MORE: What is the Fastest Mercedes?

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MORE: Mercedes Unveils Exclusive New Brand That Is More Luxurious Than Maybach
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