Mercedes' lack of speed due to rear wing: 'Partly also the engine'

At Mercedes, the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix did not go as expected. There are still many problems at the German team and the solutions are not doing their job so far. The speed deficit is said to be mainly due to the rear wing of the W13, but the engine also seems to be short of power.

After the Bahrain Grand Prix, where Lewis Hamilton unexpectedly finished on the podium, Mercedes knew that a lot had to be done to solve the problems on the W13. Still, the gap towards Red Bull Racing and Ferrari seemed even bigger in Saudi Arabia.

George Russell eventually finished on P5 with a big gap towards the top four, and Lewis Hamilton managed to secure only one point after a dramatic qualifying session. The Mercedes again suffered from porpoising on the street circuit in Jeddah, so the measures taken by the team did not work. The suspension was increased as a result, but at the expense of the pace.

Some experts suspect that the speed deficit is partly due to the engine. "It is at most one or two tenths. The low top speeds are mainly caused by the higher air resistance", a Mercedes engineer tells Auto, Motor und Sport.

The engineers confirm to AMuS that mainly the rear wing of the W13 causes the lack of speed on the straights. The other teams with a Mercedes engine, including Williams and Aston Martin, are also performing extremely poorly so far.