Singapore, a “hard to master” circuit for Mercedes

The Singapore GP is eagerly awaited by Mercedes F1 which tends to have difficulty with its W08s on urban routes. The star-studded team missed the podium in 2015 before returning to victory the following year with Nico Rosberg. The new Silver Arrow nevertheless seemed to struggle more on the winding circuits since no Mercedes reached the podium at the last Monaco GP last May.

“Identifying our strengths and weaknesses has been a strong point of the team in recent seasons, highlights Toto wolff, the executive director of Mercedes Motorsport. As we do our best to strengthen ourselves in all areas, we need to understand the reasons behind our good and poor performance. »

“We had one of our worst experiences of the 2015 season in Singapore, but we managed to learn and return to winning ways the following year. It remains a difficult circuit to master with this set of tight turns, rather short straights and a bumpy surface., underlines Toto Wolff.

Mercedes will aim to maintain the lead in the Drivers' Championship with Lewis Hamilton which is now ahead Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) by three points after the Italian GP played on September 3 in Monza.

“We saw the pendulum swing depending on the type of circuits encountered. Singapore is the kind of track that suits Ferrari well and Red Bull. Both teams showed good performances on slow circuits requiring maximum downforce. Conversely, life was more complicated for us during these trips in 2017. These facts sometimes simply depend on the DNA of the car. Despite everything, we learned from our difficulties in Monaco, we significantly raised our level of play in Hungary and we made good progress in understanding the chassis. warns Toto Wolff.

Mercedes has a greater advantage in the Constructors' Championship with 62 points ahead of Scuderia Ferrari.