Lewis Hamilton lost his place on the grid to finish fourth at the Belgian Grand Prix. Photo: Getty Images/Dursun Aydemir
After him Finishing fourth at Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said his Mercedes struggled with bouncing «just like last year.» Aerodynamic dolphins and the associated bouncing have been issues that have plagued most teams in 2022, no more than Mercedes.
It will be a concern for the team and drivers that it is back midway through the 2023 season. What happened to the Mercedes at Spa? Well, they are connected.
The first is an aerodynamic phenomenon: as the car gains speed and therefore downforce, it approaches the ground. The airflow at the rear of the car then stops, allowing the car to go up before downforce builds up again, and so on.
The bouncing happens when teams try to counter the dolphin by preventing their car from going up as much. low to the ground first. They do this by making the car mechanically stiffer, especially at the rear, which causes tires to bounce on curbs and bumps in the track.
Mercedes' problems at Spa may have been caused by their weekend updates. If what Hamilton says is true, then these modifications to the side pontoons and sides of the floor caused the bottom to work a little harder in the first place.
Of course, this increase in downforce from under the bottom is the result of what the team wants. The problem is that it also seemed to increase their problems in that area rather than reduce them and eventually expose the dolphin or bouncing problem again.
Earlier this year, Mercedes redesigned its car to avoid 'porpoise' Credit: Getty Images/Joe Portlock Why didn't jumping affect Russell as much as it did Hamilton?
However, it was interesting to see Hamilton running with less wings and downforce in his configuration than his teammate George Russell. Hamilton has been faster overall over the weekend and perhaps that's something Mercedes can learn from the rest of the season. Less downforce means the car compresses less in high-speed sections, so the ride height may need to be increased a bit.
At the previous race in Hungary, this would not have manifested itself sharply. The Hungaroring is a completely different circuit, with longer and slower corners overall. Spa has some very fast turns and sections such as Eau Rouge/Raidillon and Pouhon. The problems would be more obvious in Belgium due to the high compression in Haut Rouge where the car is running very low to the ground; this requires the car to run harder to prevent it from falling over.
We have never heard of other teams suffering from this. They all seem to have come to terms with the fact that bouncing will occur at certain points, and they just react to it and know what to do. The Ferrari drivers' heads bounced up and down in the high-speed Blanchimont towards the end of the lap, and this could only be due to dolphins or bouncing. I'm not sure if Mercedes keeps talking about this because they want the FIA to step in and change the rules.
However, the team has to live and learn every weekend, and as I wrote earlier, Mercedes doesn't seem to be doing very well. There has been a lot of running around since the beginning of last year, but they are still looking for that magic wand.
The solution for Mercedes is to see 
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes (left) couldn't keep up with Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who moved up from sixth on the grid to win. Photo: EPA/Oliver Matthys
What about solutions? Mercedes, of course, changes some things, but I was surprised to see their updated air intake in the Spa. It feels like a step back to their Zero-Pods concept, not Red Bull. They certainly have the ability to make it and use it on their vehicle in the best possible way.
I'm not saying they should just copy Red Bull — things are a lot more complex and intricate than what I wrote last week — but McLaren is a good example of a team that has worked hard and figured out the direction they need to go. They moved from the back of the midfield to the calling Mercedes. Somewhere Mercedes can't see the forest for the trees.
The return of bouncing might not disrupt their current development path, and it's unlikely we'll see it in the next few rounds. Due to the characteristics I mentioned above, if this problem occurs anywhere, it will only be in Spa.
Zandvoort has a relatively low speed, so this should not be a problem. This can be a problem in Monza, but only if you are stupid and drive too low to the ground. This will most likely only happen at the end of the pit stop, and getting out of it is relatively easy, unlike Spa, due to the numerous compression points.
As for the rest of the tracks, it's a bit of a lottery, but there some tracks where bouncing can be a problem for Mercedes. Still, everything is decided in the stiffness and ground clearance of the car. To fix this, you only need to raise the ride height by millimeters. Yes, this may mean that the car is unable to complete a certain corner at the optimum ride height, but by far the most important point is the car's balance. Red Bull has it in abundance and it gives Verstappen the utmost confidence that he will be in his class almost every weekend.
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