F1
Mercedes will take advantage of its lead over the peloton to “experiment” with solutions
George Russell settles into the Mercedes W13 in Jeddah. © DPPI
The Silver Arrows find Australia in a very different state of form from the last arrival of the Formula 1 in Melbourne. In 2019, Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton crushed the competition, giving the start of a season dominated from start to finish by Mercedes. Three years later, the Star brand has lost its splendor.
Indeed, even though Mercedes enters the third Grand Prix of the season in second place in the Manufacturers' standings, it is already 40 points behind Ferrari ! Both in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell evolved a tone below the leading group.
SLAYYYYY 🤩🤩 pic.twitter.com/N3APeHVcRr
- Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@ MercedesAMGF1) April 4, 2022
In his analysis video published on YouTube, Director of Track Engineering Andrew Shovlin gives a mixed picture. “We have no illusions about this performance gap, and in Jeddah it was a little bigger than in Bahrain. We have a lot of time to find in qualifying and on the long runs if we want to challenge the Ferraris and the Red Bull. However, behind us it seems that we have a little margin on the chasing pack. »
This gap on the Alpine, Haas, Alfa Romeo et al constitutes an advantage in the eyes of the Mercedes engineer. “We have to do a good job to be ahead of them, but we have a bit of margin and that gives us a bit of breathing room to allow us to experiment over the weekend, to try to come up with solutions for raise the performance level of the car.
Everyone is working very hard to try to understand the problem and come up with solutions and we will do it gradually over the next few races. »
Thus, Mercedes calms the enthusiasm of the supporters; the return to happy days is not for now. Development work on the W13 could lead to successes in order to close the gap on the leading group, but the term "experimenting" suggests that the eight-time defending champion team among the Manufacturers does not really know to which saint to devote oneself.
Medhi Casaurang
Passionate about the history of motorsport across all disciplines, I learned to read thanks to AUTOhebdo. At least that's what my parents tell everyone when they see my name inside!
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05/04/2022 at 09:36 a.m.
W13....the wrong number? A year without for the German steamroller?
Roger Lee Meyzindi
10/04/2022 at 01:20 a.m.
Anyone who knows Mercedes knows very well that when the team is in difficulty and this is the case, they become stronger when they have detected the origin of the poor performance. The anti-Mercedes don't rejoice too quickly. They are not World champions for 8 consecutive years by chance.