But we are fighting to understand the car and improve and progress through the year. There may still be 20 races to go, but Hamilton said he had to be “realistic” about Mercedes’ position. “We have a direction to unlock the potential in the car to bring us much closer but at the moment we haven’t got the key,” Wolff said. This causes a loss of downforce, which then returns as the car raises, before the problem recurs. Mercedes now admit that they fear the unusual concept of the car could be the cause of the problem. “I wouldn’t say there is such thing as a concept being wrong.

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