Toto Wolff admits Mercedes are struggling to understand their lack of pace

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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff admitted they “don’t understand” how to unlock the potential of the struggling W13 car, as both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished well short of their Red Bull and Ferrari rivals at the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday.

Russell and Hamilton were fifth and sixth respectively at the inaugural Miami race as Max Verstappen claimed a second consecutive victory and third of the season as he held off the challenge of Charles Leclerc.

But it was another disappointing race for Mercedes as they were again left unable to challenge for a race win. The team have been hit with issues relating to ‘porpoising’ and although Wolff suggested Mercedes may revert to the specifications they used in the opening pre-season test in Bahrain and run fatter side-pods, he said he does not know how they will improve upon the W13 car ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix later this month.

“It’s clear that there is potential in the car, which is fast,” Wolff said. “But we just don’t understand how to unlock the potential. It’s a car that is super-difficult to drive and on the edge, dipping in and out of the performance window – more out than in.

“And dissecting the data with a scalpel is just a painful process because it takes a very long time and as a matter of fact the data sometimes doesn’t show what the drivers tell us.

“Certainly they have their hands full with a car that is not at all comfortable to drive or nice to drive or predictable to drive. But the data doesn’t show these big swings. We haven’t had this situation before where it just doesn’t correlate what we see on the screens with what the driver feels. That’s making it even more difficult.”

When asked if Mercedes will look at switching back from their zero-pod design they have used over the first five races of the season, Wolff said Mercedes “wouldn’t discount anything”.

Wolff added: “But we need to give all of our people who have produced great racecars in the past the benefit of the doubt, and we believe this is the route to go down.

“Barcelona is definitely going to be a point in time when we are able to correlate with what we’ve seen in February [in the first test there with the old concept] and gather more data.

“I’m also annoyed by always saying the same thing a lot: gathering data and making experiments. But it’s physics and not mystics.”