Probably the term that best describes Brakley's team right now is "the failed contender"; the W13 should have been the reference point for the months to come, or at least so the technicians of the star had courageously anticipated, but proving to be a probably incorrect project, the possibility of no longer seeing the version with minimal bellies on the tracks of the world championship could materialize .
There is no light at the end of the tunnel
Since testing in Bahrain la silver arrow he struggled to keep up with Red Bull e Ferrari, grabbing the label of 'third force'. Everyone was amazed and skeptical when the two British pilots of the Mercedes they had declared, after the first laps on the W13, that the evolution of the machine brought to Barcelona it was difficult to drive. Many expected the much-told 'unlocking of potential' in a short time, but to date, there has been very little. There W13 It's a car that doesn't get along with the changes, and which is capable of giving some sign of functioning only in a precise one window, as seen in the free tests di Miami, where with boiling asphalt temperatures the tires were easy to bring in temperature, and the project of Brackley he was more comfortable.
Empty attempts
About the changes not digested by the single-seater, we can mention the most conspicuous even to less expert eyes: a Miamiin fact, the W13 was equipped with new wings, both back is front, yet the gap which separated it from the leading cars before the safety car was greater than 40 seconds, a sign that every effort of the technicians had been almost in vain.
Last call
After five races, it is clear that the time when the technicians are getting closer and closer Mercedes they will have to make a decision; on the occasion of Spanish Grand Prix which will be held in two weeks, in fact, the team could decide to abandon the project from tight bellies, or to continue on the road traveled up to now. In this regard, the team principal Toto Wolff"Basically I wouldn't discount anything, but we have to give our engineers the benefit of the doubt, The guys at the factory have produced great racing cars over the past few years and we believe the road taken with the W13 is the way to go. Barcelona it will certainly be a track on which we will be able to correlate i data collected because we have already filmed there at February. We will collect more data collected".
“It also annoys me to say the same things, that is, to collect data collected and do experiments, but this is physics, not mystical things. So we need to analyze the data collected thoroughly. " "We are busy working on the current concept and still need to be. If I don't believe it, if I think there's a 50% chance it is mistaken, then you have to change right away. We are faithful to the current concept. We are not looking at others team to see if there are things we like better. We think our ideas are good."
“But we have to understand. We must do this before making the decision to move on to another concept. We must understand where we have mistaken, we need to figure out what the part is good is that bad of our project. This is the question that only we will have to answer."
“We will answer that question later Barcelona, because this is the real and only track where we can correlate data collected. Then we'll look in the mirror and ask ourselves, 'Were we wrong or not?'”
Porpoising and driveability
The Austrian manager also spoke about the phenomenon of pouring which so afflicts the machine of the star, the unpleasant 'dolphin effect'In fact, it does not stop as is the case with other cars just before the detached, but it continues at the beginning braking, making it difficult to manage, and in the case of fast curves, also continues in journey; Wolff said: "If you take a walk around the grid you can see how i BORDI of our floor are much more exposed compared to those of the other single-seaters. And this, one way or another, can accentuate the possible instability. I think this is where our project differs from other cars. Clearly the machine we tested a Barcelona and much more slow on paper, but we need to find out how we can make the current car work so predictable for pilots".
SOURCE: Motorsport.com Italy
