Mercedes scrapped the element after Friday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps, but has said it will return with an upgraded floor for the W15 at the Dutch Grand Prix.
The Brackley squad has introduced the new floor as part of a wide-ranging package of performance upgrades that will help close the gap on championship leaders Red Bull and McLaren.
However, after Lewis Hamilton and George Russell suffered unexpectedly poor performances in the opening race at Spa, the team decided to revert to their previous specification for the remainder of the weekend in the latter’s case, with the aim of approaching it from a known baseline.
Mercedes’ decision has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the upgrade, especially given recent setbacks suffered by Ferrari and Aston Martin with their updates, but team boss Toto Wolff insists the issues at Spa were not related to the floor.
Instead, the team believes the root of the problem lies in the mechanical setup.
“I think we’ve made some huge changes to try to get some of that performance back, but I don’t think it’s because of the floor,” Wolff explained at Spa last weekend. motorsport.com.
“It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we put everything back on the car at Zandvoort and correlate it. Then we can see if it’s the mechanical part that we thought it was, or if there’s some interaction that doesn’t work aerodynamically or mechanically.”
Mercedes have regained their momentum in recent racing, winning three of the last four grands prix.
While these improvements have led to optimism within the team, Wolf remains cautious about the team’s chances of winning the title.
“I think we have to keep both feet on the ground,” he explained. “The change in performance is definitely a positive trend on our side. The other teams are showing a negative trend.
“But I don’t think we should predict what the second half of the season will be like. I think it’s a tough fight, and there are four teams that are giving it their all.
“I think we can be cautiously optimistic, but we have to prove it. There are 10 races left.”
