Mercedes took a cautious approach to the changes in regulations for 2023 that proved to be the wrong direction, according to technical director James Allison.
The phenomenon of porpoising – or bouncing – surfaced last year as a result of the new ground effect regulations that were introduced, leading the FIA to enforce changes to the floors to combat the issue this year. Allison says Mercedes had been understanding how to improve last year’s car as the season went on but then made a mistake in how careful it was with its new car over the winter.
“Although we made great strides last year, 2023 presented all the teams with a rule change that offered some protection against bouncing,” Allison said. “Over the winter we faced a choice: Go aggressive and trade the bouncing protection in the rule change for performance, or take a more cautions route and steer clear of the sort of porpoising that wrecked our season last year.
“We chose the cautious path, knowing that it would be less painful to correct if we were wrong. The story of our year so far has been mostly about finding out that we had been too cautious and making the changes to correct that.”