Toto Wolff senses Mercedes improvement in Miami to unlock ‘quite some lap time’

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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes if the team’s engineers can improve the car for the Miami Grand Prix they will have “some lap time”.

The team have struggled this season, particularly with ‘porpoising’, which has seen them bag only two podiums and no wins. The reality of the situation has led driver Lewis Hamilton to concede his title chances this campaign.

But Wolff says their season could turn around in Miami.

“We very much believe that the science we are putting in at the moment will help us to, in effect, run the car lower,” he said, as per Motorsport.com. “It is where we believe we have all the aerodynamic goodness, but we haven’t been able to unlock it because of the bottoming of the car.

“If we are able to get on top of that, that means there’s quite some lap time we can find. If not, we need to have another idea.”

Wolff added the porpoising is stopping Mercedes from unlocking the potential the car has. The issue led to the team boss calling it “undriveable” after Hamilton came 13th at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix last Sunday.

“The fundamental issue that, in a way, overshadows everything, is that our car is porpoising more than others,” he said.

“Because of the bouncing, we are not able to run it where it should run, and that has huge ramifications on the set-up, on the tyre grip etc, etc, etc.

“So, one is interlinked to the other. I think if we get on top of the porpoising we would unlock much more in terms of performance on the car.”

Hamilton and teammate George Russell will be able to test if the improvements have made an impact in Miami on 8 May.