Why Mercedes might have to wait until next weekend's Spanish GP for true read on F1 upgrades
A long-awaited upgrade package - featuring new sidepods, front suspension and floor - will debut at the Monaco Grandꦬ Prix as Mercedes look to close their performance gap to Red Bull after starting a second consecutive season well off the pace.
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Monaco is not usually a tr🦋ack where teams would choose to introduce major updates given the unique challenges and risks posed by the famous barrier-lined circuit.
Davidson, who also acts as a simulator driver for Mercedes alongside his punditry duties for Sky, reckon𒐪s a conventional circuit like Barcelona will provide the team with a much more representative picture.
"Visually the car does and will look very differen💧t out on track," he explained. “Performance-wise, that’s yet to be seen.
"This is a difficult circuit to ju✨dge performance on in term of upgrades. This ci💮rcuit is more about emphasis on the driver, how you get the tyres working.
“Yes of course you need downforce, but this track does𓂃n’t reward efficiency of your downforce package. It just rewards how you work the tyres and pure downforce on your car. Even if it’s a very draggy car, you can still go well here.
“So we’re not really going to see how well th🐎ese upgrades perform until we get to Barcelona, which is a great testbed.”
Hard to draw conclusions at 'one-of-a-kind' circuit
168澳洲5最新开奖结果:George Russell echoed Davidson's ♉comments, stressing it will be diff𒊎icult for Mercedes to drawn any firm conclusions this weekend.
"We are aware this is a very one-of-a-kind circuit and we are not going to read anything into the performance that the new updates show 🦄this weekend," he said.
"There are always outliers in teams who over perform around tracks like Monaco and teams that underperform. But ultimately we don't 👍design a car to be at its peak in Monaco.
"I trust in the team and I don't think there will be anything scary with the upgrade that throws us off-piste. We will treat it as a one-of-a-kind and then re-evaluate in Barc♎elona.
"I am glad we are proceeding with it because you always want to put as much performance on the car as possible and it w🔯ould have been a demoralising🉐 weekend for all of us had we known we had a bit of performance on the table."
Lewis regꦑularly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
