A promising start to F1’s🐠 inaugural Miami Grand Prix proved to be a false dawn as Mercedes fell back in qualifying and the race, with George Russell and Hamilton event🤪ually finishing fifth and sixth. 

Hamilton’s frustrating start to the year continued in Miami as he lost out to his new teammate Russell due to the timing of a Safety Car for the second time in five race🐽s and questioned Mercedes’ strategy. 

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Asked if Mercedes🐠 had taken a step forward in Miami, Hamilton said: “Unfortu🎀nately not. 

"We're the same speed as we were in the first race and ♚we just haven't 𒁃improved in these five races.

"But I'm hopefu🅘l at some sta🍨ge we will. We just have to keep trying and keep working hard.”

The performance oไf Mercedes’ W13 challenger has been hampered by the high-frequency bouncing phenomenon known as porpoising, which is not showing up on th𒀰e team’s simulations. 

Mercedes are still trying to get to the bottom of the violent bouncing and, as a result, are yet unlock the true potential of their ‘no-sidepod’ concept, which the team insists is quicker than the original version of the W13 that hit t⛎he track at the start of pre-season testing. 

Hamilton felt the porpoising was less of an issue in Miami but sus𓄧pects that was largely down🐟 to the specific conditions and track surface at the new street circuit. 

“It wasn’t as bad today,” he said. “From race to race, trac♛k to track, surface to surface, how hig💛h we put the car – we can put the car higher and reduce it – so today wasn’t actually really bad, just not fast.”

Mercedes won’t rule out return to old-spec F1 car 

On Sunday night in Miami, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff did not discount the prospect of the team reverting to its older specification car thatඣ originally debuted in the Barcelona test. 

The upcoming Spanish Gr꧋and Prix is set to be something of a make-or-break weekend for Merc🅷edes as the team looks to take more crucial learnings from a direct, real-world comparison of the two concepts. 

While Wolff stressed the team is “still committed to the current concept”, he did not&nbsꦏp;dismiss a return to the car that is “muc🤡h slower on paper” if progress is not made soon. 

“We need toꦺ find out how we can make the current c𒁏ar work predictably for the drivers,” said Wolff. 

“I꧑ wouldn’t discount anything. But we need to give all of our people who have produced great racecars in the past the benefit of t⛦he doubt, and we believe this is the route to go down.

“Barcelona [the next race] is definitely going to be a point in time when we are able to correlate with what we’ve seen in February [in the first test there with the old concept] and gꦅather more data.

“I’m also annoyed by always saying the same thing a lot: gathering data and making experiments. Bu🍒t it’s physics and not mystics.”

For the time being, Mercedes remai⭕ns “faithful to the current concept”, according to Wolff. 

"We're not looking at the lady next door if we l𒁃ike it more or not, because it's still good,” he expl🦩ained. 

“We need to understand, before we make a decision on another concept - wh𝄹ere did this one go wrong? And what is the goodness of the concept and what is the badness of the concept?

“And that is a question you can only respond to yourself, but I would be asking ourselveಞs to get an answer after Barcelona, becaus🌼e that’s the real correlation we have.

“And by then, we’ve got to look at ourselves in th⛄e mirr𓃲or and say: ‘did we get it wrong or not?’.”