Porpoising has been the key word for Mercedes in 2022. The bouncing effect on the straights has defined their season thus far and Imola was their nadir. Failing to get either car through to Q3, the top ten shootout in qualifying, was the first time in ten years we'd seen the team fail to meet what has previously been a relatively simple task.

At the moment the radical looking W13 simply isn't capable of fighting with Red Bull or Ferrari for race wins and in Imola their problem led to George Russell to comment that "it takes your breath away." The physicality of driving a car like this means that being able to compete for 63 laps is almost impossible. In Imola the team were also struggling with generating heat into their tyres. This badly
affected them over a single lap and left them on the back foot in qualifying. 

Russell, a podium finisher in Australia, was superb on Sunday and came from 11th on the grid to finish fourth after a spirited drive.

"I'm relatively pleased to maximise the points available this weekend," said the 24 year old who also sits fourth in the championship standings. "Whether we're getting the most out of the car is a different story and I do think things have fallen slightly in our favour with these first four races. I'm really happy with finishing fourth but if we want to sustain our position in the championship, we need to find more pace.

"We've got these overall limitations with the car with the bouncing, and we know that we are struggling with the tyre warm up and this is the coldest race weekend we've had by far this year. I think it's been a bit of a trend since Bahrain, we've progressively gotten a bit slower in qualifying. We need to find a better compromise because we were fortunate today, we had a decent result, but ultimately, we were starting far too low on the grid."

For Hamilton it was "a weekend to forget" The seven times World Champion qualified 14th and only made up one position over the 63 lap duration.

"This weekend everything that could go wrong did go wrong," rued Hamilton. "We live and we learn, and there's not much else to say. I'll keep working as hard as I can to try and pull it back together, somehow. I hope for a better weekend in Miami, it will be difficult but I'll try and get myself in a positive headspace for the next one.

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