After a rocky start to the season largely due to porpoising issues, Mercedes managed to make some strides in recent weekends to narrow its gap to Red Bull and Ferrari, scoring four podium finishes.
Before arriving at the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix, it was hoped that the nature of the asphalt of the Paul Ricard circuit would help the German team, but so far this has not been the case.
George Russell finished fourth in the first practice session, while Formula 2 and Formula E champion Nyck de Vries, who replaced Lewis Hamilton in these early tests as a “young driver”, finished ninth, half a second behind. .
In Free Practice 2, the seven-time world champion British driver returned to the wheel of his car and achieved the fifth fastest time of FP2, behind his teammate, although both were more than seven tenths off the best time of the day , marked by Carlos Sainz.
Speaking about what happened on Friday, Toto Wolff explained that it had taken them longer than expected to get the Pirelli tires into the “optimal grip range”.
“Here we are not where we want,” said the Austrian director. “We are testing many parts, but at the moment we lack pace. It is early, but our performance was not encouraging. It seems that we did not get the full potential of the car.”
“We will do some comparisons and see what happens tomorrow,” he added.
Nyck de Vries, Mercedes W13
Photo: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images
“There are small aerodynamic modifications on the ground that should improve things a bit,” Wolff said of the updates Mercedes brought to the French round.
In the final weekend of Formula 1, the Brackley team achieved its best result of the season, scoring a total of 33 points in a single weekend, the joint highest score between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell .
Regarding its position in the constructors’ classification, Mercedes is third with 237, well behind Ferrari, who are second with 303 units, and well ahead of its closest rival; McLaren and Alpine, tied on 81 points for fourth and fifth place.
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