Mercedes claims teams 'wouldn’t be doing it if it was negative'

19:29, 28 May

bySavannah Lenz

In the Mercedes Akkodis Monaco Grand Prix Race Debrief, Bradley Lord discussed the new regulations for the front wing and what he expects to happen with Mercedes' performance.

One hot topic that’s only getting hotter as race week goes on is the new front wing regulations and how they will affect the teams. Mercedes team representative Lord answered how much of an impact the five millimetres would actually have.

He said, “It certainly can have an impact because teams wouldn’t be doing it unless it was having a performance-positive impact."

Mercedes to bring upgrades in Barcelona

"Wouldn’t be doing it if it was negative, and it’s fair to say no team would be choosing to run the wing the way we are having to from Spain unless we had been obliged to do so by technical directives.“

“So we don’t know at the moment is the honest answer. We can expect it to make a difference, certainly make the car a little bit more delicate to balance between a happy low speed balance to get around the slow corners and then not being too nervous in the high speed corners. But what the relative impact will be, only the weekend will show. “

Ferrari, Red Bull, and Mercedes are bring upgrades this weekend.

About Mercedes upgrades, Lord said, “They're only small upgrades. That's the nature of upgrades when you're in the fourth year of a regulation cycle. You don't find big chunks of tenths of performance.”

He continued, “So it's small bits, but small marginal gains that we're able to make in lots of different parts of the car. In terms of expectation, it has to be, first of all, just to get ourselves back on a more solid footing after tough weekends in Imola and Monaco.”

“Then really to be up there fighting in the top six in qualifying and most importantly, able to maintain or improve those positions when it comes to the race.”

Mercedes has had a strong qualifying record this year, with George Russell starting in the first three rows most of the time.

“We've seen a trend this year. We've seen it in Miami. We've seen it in Jeddah. We saw it also in Imola, where we qualify strongly, but then have fallen back relative to the cars we are qualifying around or those just behind us.”

Lord admits, “That's really the biggest focus of effort, is making sure we have the correct balance of single-lap qualifying pace, but also strong race pace, because ultimately, as we all know, the points are scored on Sunday and not on Saturday.”