Mercedes reveal impact of new floor on lost pace at Zandvoort

Mercedes have debated whether their new floor impacted a sub-par weekend at Zandvoort.

Toto Wolff’s F1 team arrive at Monza for this weekend’s F1 Italian Grand Prix hoping to quickly forget what went wrong a week ago.

In the Netherlands, Lewis Hamilton declared his weekend was “done” after a poor qualifying before finishing eighth in the grand prix. George Russell was sixth and struggled with grip.

It ended a remarkable run of three victories in four grands prix.

Technical director James Allison said: “It won’t be as simple as ‘the track doesn’t suit the car’.

“Whether you have a good weekend or not, it’s dependant on a huge amount of things. They all need to be nearly dead-on right to get what you’d call the true pace of the car.

“In the run-up to shutdown, we managed to hit our stride at pretty much every track.

“In Zandvoort with the weather on Friday and the decisions we took overnight, we didn’t get into the groove to get the best from the car.

“Small mistakes, small errors in set-up will turn you from competitive to mediocre. It’s tight at the top.

“We didn’t get it right, and had a mediocre result as a consequence.”

Allison was asked if Mercedes’ new floor played a role in their lack of pace.

The floor was introduced in Spa then withdrawn after confusing results. It was reintroduced for the race at Zandvoort.

“The simple answer is: we don’t fully know,” he admitted.

“You can take straightforward measurements - the downforce was there. On one level, you could take comfort that it worked as expected.

“But a lot of the pace of the cars this year is how well they handle.

“It’s not just ‘does your aero package deliver downforce?’ It is ‘does it deliver the balanced car that you need through corners, the balanced car you need from high speed to low speed’.

“We didn’t have a balanced car. That’s where the pace went.

“Whether it was the floor or the aero package? We need to keep an open mind.

“Right now, we know it measured the downforce. But we don’t know if it delivered balance.”

Mercedes, entering Monza, are fourth in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.