Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has issued a message to Lewis Hamilton that he may not want to hear. The Austrian has encouraged the seven-time champion and his team to be patient as they look to close the gap to rivals Ferrari and Red Bull.
The Silver Arrows have been struggling with a porpoising issue - which causes the car to bounce up and down on the straights. Mercedes engineers have been working tirelessly at their Brackley factory to solve their problems, but Wolff concedes it will take some time before his team are back competing at the front of the grid.
“We know we haven't got the pace of the Ferrari and Red Bull right now. But we're working hard to reduce their advantage,” he said. “There's been a lot of hard work over the Easter weekend in the factory to bring improvements to the car and get it ready to head to the next race, and that shows the team's dedication to turning the situation around.
“Of course, we must be realistic, it will take time to make the gains we want, but we're learning as much as we can from each race and finding avenues to push us forward.” Explaining the porpoising to be beyond his control, Hamilton said: "You can't really stop it. The only thing you can do is come off the gas, I guess, and just drive slow.
"But when the car is going up and down, bouncing, and you're turning in at 200 miles per hour and the car is loaded, unloaded, loaded, unloaded, you can imagine it's quite unstable, so that's what we're faced with." Hamilton managed a third-place finish in the season opener in Bahrain, before a disappointing tenth-place finish in Saudi Arabia.
Hamilton has vented his frustration at Mercedes' lack of pace so far this season after finishing fourth in Australia last time out. “We have not made any progress," he said. "I really hope over this next week we can get as much information and figure something out.
“I wish I could be optimistic and say we have got something better coming, but at the moment we don't. Winning is a long way off, a second off, so it is a huge gap. I don't enjoy driving this car but I enjoy the collaboration with the guys, knowing that there is a steep hill to climb and remaining hopeful that we will get there.”
Mercedes will do all they can to have an encouraging weekend in Imola, which will host the first sprint race of the campaign on Saturday to determine the grid for Sunday's showpiece event.
