Lewis Hamilton's desolation as he moved out his Mercedes Formula 1 vehicle in Baku was a world away from the delight he was welcomed with after the Spanish Grand Prix.
Only three races back, a bundle of changes presented for the Barcelona race seemed to have changed the speed of the W13.
The Mercedes had conveyed its most grounded type of the time and Hamilton's charge from the back to complete fifth left group manager Toto Wolff recommending he had the quickest race vehicle that day.
Yet, any expectations that the Barcelona advancement flagged a defining moment in Mercedes fights to tame its 2022 challenger have been quickly run.
Both Monaco and Baku have ended up being amazingly hard for its drivers - with the unnecessary porpoising that has been a consistently present harming them both in aggressive terms and the exacting aggravation that Hamilton persevered in Azerbaijan.
So was Barcelona a bogus sunrise for Mercedes where situation complimented its vehicle? Or on the other hand triumph ultimately the last two races just not played to the region that the group has on top of?
The response is a touch of both.
Designing settlement
Mercedes' fight this year has been to run vehicle with ride level and suspension settings can have it as near the ground as could really be expected, however without setting off the porpoising and bobbing that bother the drivers and hurt its structure.
Run the vehicle high and delicate enough to lighten the skipping and it's not quickly enough, however go too low and too solid and the porpoising is there intensely.
As head of trackside designing Andrew Shovlin has made sense of, the fight between those two clashing requests has been a ceaseless cerebral pain.
"We understand this is really an incredibly, convoluted issue," he said. "It isn't something that you can apply a goal to and it's gone and you can forget about it. It will constantly be there: you're designing around it.
"Perhaps it's taken more time than we would have suspected however I think the issue is, as you kind of strip away the layers of the onion, there's additional layers of the onion to go. It's actually similar to that the more you get familiar with the more you understand you don't have the foggiest idea."
Monaco and Baku factors
The core of Mercedes' concerns is that its W13 produces its pinnacle downforce execution when it runs exceptionally low to the ground.
Also, capacity to do is helped when the actual ground is smooth and steady, similar to it was in Barcelona.
So when track surfaces are more lopsided and uneven, as they have been in Monaco and Baku, then that disturbs the W13 from having the option to work in its blissful spot.
What Mercedes doesn't yet know is the amount of the porpoising it then, at that point, endures is down to streamlined reasons, and how much comes from its mechanical set-up.
"It has been a test," conceded Shovlin. "Furthermore, what we've looked here in Baku has been a lot of a continuation of Monaco.
"We have gained ground in Barcelona, since we were going down the straights and it was all exceptionally quite quiet and agreeable for the drivers. However, it appears to be that on the rough circuits, the ride has turned into an issue.
"You can't distil out precisely exact thing's streamlined and what's mechanical ride and the connection to the consistence of the suspension and damping. Be that as it may, the bottom line is we have more work to do."
The Barcelona illustrations
While Monaco and Baku have been troublesome, the illustrations removed from the end of the week have effectively accentuated exactly why the Spanish GP weekend was so great.
Furthermore, it goes past the way that Barcelona is a lot of smoother than the new two road scenes.
What GPS information from Barcelona showed was that when the W13 is in its cheerful spot and working in the window where the porpoising isn't keeping it down, then, at that point, it can do things that even shade the Red Bull and Ferrari vehicles.
Contrasting the passing laps of George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen from the Spanish GP, the Mercedes is fastest by and large in a few region of the track.
It beat the speed traps toward the finish of both the fundamental straight and the overview to Turn 10, yet more curiously it was ahead all through the high velocity Turn 3 right-hander, a spot that shows the air qualities of present day F1 vehicles.
This all focuses to Mercedes performing better in rapid corners when the vehicle isn't skipping than the low speed turns that are more normal in Monaco and Baku.
As Shovlin makes sense of: "Assuming you take a gander at where we were making up that exhibition in Spain, we were just barely the quickest in an orderly fashion. Just barely, we were the speediest in the two quick corners. We weren't sufficient in the sluggish speed.
"The image we took from that point was that we expected to chip away at the sluggish speed. And afterward you come to Monaco, and Baku where there is a major sluggish speed strength there. Then, at that point, combined with that, there are the ride issues.
"There will be tracks that suit us more than these. Be that as it may, for our purposes, it's anything but an instance of anticipating those and stressing over the others. It is an instance of we should comprehend the issue, how about we resolve how to further develop it, since obviously different groups have improved."
Rollercoaster ride
What the examples from Barcelona, Monaco and Baku feature is that Mercedes is probably not going to find a degree of consistency with its presentation at this time.
Rough tracks, similar to Montreal this end of the week, will keep being a migraine until it tracks down replies, though there ought to be purposes behind it to have a hopeful outlook on smooth rapid scenes like Silverstone and Paul Ricard.
However, Shovlin figures it would be off-base for the group to just place its faith in the schedule conveying reasonable scenes. He knows Mercedes needs to get a vehicle that performs all over.
"What you would agree that approaching off the rear of Monaco and Baku is that the holes that we have appear to develop when we go to an uneven circuit," he said.
"At the point when you see what we're managing, regarding the information, or you take a gander at the installed film and what the drivers are managing, you can see the reason why that is.
"The vehicle isn't settled. It's not absorbing the knocks well. It will not stand by on the straights, it moves around a ton. So it will develop that image.
"Montreal is definitely not a smooth circuit, however perhaps puts like Ricard and Silverstone, this vehicle would work better. Yet, regardless of whether we get onto a smooth track, we're very much aware that the base execution isn't there either right now. We must slope that up."
Idea change
The size of the issues in Monaco and Baku have likewise reignited the discussion about the Mercedes idea, and whether maybe it necessities to upgrade things for 2023.
Group supervisor Toto Wolff said after the Baku race that there were no "sacred cows" on the vehicle that wouldn't be dumped if the group felt better things would be finished all things considered.
Yet, for the present, Shovlin says the spotlight is a lot of on getting designing responses, as he makes light of talk that a difference in sidepod shape for instance would be a silver projectile to tackle its concerns.
"The ride issues are probably not going to be because of the state of the bodywork of the vehicle, as some of it is most certainly mechanical.
"On the off chance that you have a vehicle that is creating downforce, nearer to the street, so its pinnacle is lower, then you have less space to play with. Also, you need to innately run it stiffer.
"There's a ton of regions that we're checking out. So I believe it's presumably working on it to say: do we out of nowhere make a vehicle that looks drastically changed, and head off on an alternate course?
"The way that we view at it as designers is we will distinguish which regions are sufficient and which are not adequate. Furthermore, work on those.
"Right now, the rundown of regions not sufficient is greater than we'd like. So we want to stall out into managing that."
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