‘Mercedes W13 isn’t bad, it just had a huge problem with porpoising’

Former single-seater racer Ho-Pin Tung says it shouldn’t come as a surprise to the paddock that Mercedes are moving forward now that they’ve sorted their porpoising problems.

Although Mercedes’ run of podium finishes ended at the Belgian Grand Prix, George Russell only narrowly missed out on the podium in a race where his team-mate Lewis Hamilton crashed out on the opening lap.

Left to fly the flag alone for Mercedes, Russell took the fight to Ferrari for the final podium position but fell short by three seconds.

It was, however, another solid Sunday for the Brackley squad who, while trounced by Red Bull on a weekend where the RB18 was in a league of its own, was on a par with the pace of the Ferraris.

Tung says he’s not surprised given that Mercedes’ biggest problem in the early part of this season was their car’s bouncing.

The team even declared after the Hungarian Grand Prix that the porpoising was “no longer an issue”, allowing them to turn their focus onto developing the car and finding the downforce they had to scrub to eradicate the bouncing.

“I think Mercedes is definitely making progress,” Tung told Motorsport.com during the recent Viaplay F1 10-day presentation.

“Basically the car isn’t that bad, I’ve been saying that since the beginning of this season.

“They have had a huge problem with porpoising. From the moment they got that out, they were immediately competitive.

“It is very disturbing for the driver while driving, but also for engineers.”

The 39-year-old explained that why it was so difficult for Mercedes to get on top of the problem was because porpoising is very hard to replicate in a wind tunnel.

“If you look at the data, you have a moving car in the curves, the airflows are changing,” he said. “They’re trying to simulate all that in the wind tunnel.

“You have to imagine making a turn, it’s so tight that a team knows exactly what ride height they know in a particular corner because they know it will give them the best balance for that particular corner.

“With porpoising you’re just trying to keep that car on the track and you don’t get to the details.”

He added: “It makes a lot of sense that they took a big step when they got it out.”

With just one car scoring at the Belgian Grand Prix, Mercedes lost a bit of ground to Ferrari in the race for second in the Constructors’ Championship, the gap up to 41 points.

Russell is 21 points off the pace in the fight for runner-up in the Drivers’ standings.