Mercedes admits it wasn’t surprised by its own performance at the Formula 1 race in Australia. In qualifying in Melbourne, the Silver Arrows occupied positions two and three on the grid and then took the lead with both cars at the start. In the end Red Bull was too strong, but at times you could keep up with Max Verstappen.
But from Mercedes’ point of view it wasn’t that unusual: “Was it to be expected? On the whole yes,” says technical director James Allison, “because the level of performance in Australia was not significantly different from that on the other two tracks in Australia this year”.
Although you have to limit that: For Mercedes, Red Bull was the different factor in Australia, the comparison to all other teams was similar. “I think the biggest change in Australia was that Red Bull was a little worse in qualifying than the rest of the field and that closed the field a bit,” says Allison.
On the other hand, if you compare the pace to Aston Martin or Ferrari, Mercedes was a little better than before, “but it wasn’t earthquake-like,” as the Mercedes man emphasizes.
Mercedes team boss Wolff: The track helped
However, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Mercedes was at a disadvantage compared to its two rivals, while George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were faster in Melbourne. “We expected to be in the battle with Ferrari and Aston Martin,” says Allison. “And we’re glad we’re ahead.”
“How much of the overall good results from the weekend was track specific and how much came from things we did? Only time will tell.”
He remains cautious: “We’ll be racing some other very different tracks over the next few weeks and then we’ll see if this was the first harbinger of an overall performance boost that we were hoping for or if it was the rather unusual track conditions related that we experienced this weekend in Melbourne.”
Head of Motorsport Toto Wolff believes that the track was quite accommodating to Mercedes. “Our car lacks a bit of performance at the rear, so the track definitely helped,” he says. “I think she made us look better than we should be. But we know where our weaknesses lie.”
George Russell sees another factor in why he was so close to the top, although Mercedes had previously spoken of finishing somewhere between fifth and eighth.
Mercedes driver Russell satisfied: car in the “really good window”
I worked really hard with my engineers to get the best out of a set-up. And I feel like we’ve put the car in a really good window over the last two weekends,” says the Englishman.
“We strayed a bit from what our simulations had predicted for us. That was maybe one reason why the pace in Bahrain was so bad. With the knowledge I have now, we probably would have the car in Bahrain in one can have completely different windows to have more performance.”
“We need to look and understand why the simulations tell us one thing and then we go in a slightly different direction,” Russell said.
Nevertheless, he believes that the planned change of concept is still necessary: ”The progress we are currently making in the wind tunnel will lead to decent performance. And the fact is that we are here to win,” he emphasizes.
“We’re not here to just be best of the rest or half a second behind Red Bull. We’re fighting with Red Bull and maybe we were faster than Ferrari and Aston over the weekend but we’re still a long way from where we are want to be,” says Russell.
