Mercedes is working to address a severe seat heat issue at Formula 1's Italian Grand Prix after its race drivers complained about the problem in the FP2 session it led.
The German manufacturer has dominated the early storylines from Monza with Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s crash and announcement of his 2025 race seat promotion, but it was also affected by overheating seats on Friday.
Mercedes has been working to address this issue amongst its usual set-up tweaks over Friday night, where it had a range of theories to test to try and solve the problem.
In Lewis Hamilton’s description of how “it was ridiculously roasting in our car” post-FP2 on Friday, he suggested “for [what reason] I'm not quite sure exactly, [but] I think down by the radiators there's probably some leakage of hot air”.
“It was very hot,” he added. “Like sitting on a sauna with no shorts on sort of pain!”
Autosport understands that Mercedes believes this issue could also be a stemming from a cockpit heat soak problem caused by other elements, including rising Energy Recovery System temperatures spreading from the power unit on this baking Monza weekend meaning all cockpit areas are warming up dramatically.
But another theory covers the Monza layout and how best to traverse it with the low-running ground-effect cars.
As ever, to generate the best peak downforce levels with these machines, and with the lowered, flattened kerbs at Monza now meaning there is less of a risk of these circuit furniture elements damaging floors and planks, F1 teams can try lower ride heights than before.
For example, Autosport observed Hamilton’s Mercedes sparking along the ground exiting the Ascari chicane in a way no other car was doing in FP1.
But there is a trade-off to be made, as rubbing a car’s plank along the ground can actually come at a slight performance disadvantage on the long Monza straights.
This, in turn with the friction generated, would create a much greater heat soak than the teams and their drivers would encounter at layouts where the straights are much shorter.
Lifting a car slightly on ride heights would solve these twin issues, plus alleviate some of the cockpit heat issue.
This topic follows Hamilton saying F1 does not need to introduce ersatz air conditioning units to F1 cars to lower cockpit temperatures, as Autosport exclusively revealed was trialled during the Dutch GP last weekend.
The FIA is now currently assessing the experimental system’s effectiveness before it decides whether to press on and allow a wider introduction to F1 cockpits in the future.
Despite the seat issue, Hamilton topped Monza FP2 for Mercedes, although McLaren driver Oscar Piastri was on for a session-leading time but missed out due to having to catch a big slide exiting the third part of Ascari on his best lap on Friday afternoon.
With Mercedes also having led FP2 at Zandvoort and then having its competitiveness disappear in qualifying and the race, Hamilton said his squad must now “tread carefully on the set-up so we don't put the car too out of bed like we've done in the past” as the Italian GP weekend progresses.
Watch: Was Antonelli Too Fast For His Own Good? - F1 Italian GP Friday News and Analysis
