Mercedes is pinning its hopes on an upgrade for its W15 after both drivers again finished outside the top five in the Chinese Grand Prix.
George Russell took sixth in the grand prix, three places ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton, who laboured in the midfield all afternoon after qualifying a lowly 18th.Team principal Toto Wolff admitted their performance was “not good enough.”
“I think considering where we put the cars altogether, drivers and team, was not a good position for today,” he told Sky. “Overall P6 I think it was, and [ninth], but lacking pace. So we’ve got to dig deep.”
Mercedes has made few changes to its car since the year began, introducing only a minor update at this weekend’s race. But Wolff said they will be “hopefully a bit quicker” at the next race where they will bring the first significant upgrade for the W15.
“We have something coming for Miami that looks like a good step,” he said. “Let’s see where that brings us out.”
After the first five races with the W15, which follows a different design philosophy to its two predecessors, Wolff said the team accepts it isn’t as competitive as it hoped it would be.
“No, it’s not an okay car,” he said. “I think we can see what the mistakes were that we put on the car.”
Mercedes made significant changes to Hamilton’s car following the sprint race, but he was unable to progress beyond Q1 in qualifying, leaving him on the back foot for the grand prix.
“I think we wanted to go a bit more aggressive to see is [there] something that is so different that we need to do on the car,” said Wolff. “You can see Lewis today, who took it on him also, that was maybe a step too far.”
“The race car was not fast,” Wolff added. “You could hear him saying the car doesn’t turn and this is what we’ve been seeing on the data. It just wasn’t the right thing to do.”
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Tristan
21st April 2024, 12:08
Knew their crowing was rubbish. I saw nothing in Japan that made me keen to agree with their supposed turning of a corner, it was the same then and now again. Just saying whatever they can for exposure I think… Now it’s new upgrade for the next race.
Kribana (@krichelle)
21st April 2024, 14:39
This track was supposed to suit them because it is front limited and has always been. Their car behavior is terrible, Lewis said it was good in the slow and medium speed corners in the first two races, then now there are almost nowhere in those corners. I think this team has forgotten to build a car at this point and forgotten how to make the tyres work.
Mayrton
21st April 2024, 15:28
It’s becoming annoying dismissing your own top 3-4 car all the time. At least 60% of the teams would be happy to switch cars.
MadMax (@madmax)
21st April 2024, 16:01
How can anyone not see, RBR, Ferrari and McL being better than the Merc right now? The car is 4th or 5th best right now.
MichaelN
21st April 2024, 17:27
While that is true, at least Mercedes doesn’t pretend it’s fine, or that they’re on some years long journey to the top. Some teams seem to be perpetually stuck on said journey, like McLaren, Alpine and Aston Martin.
Mercedes are nowhere near being competitive for wins, which is bad, but that being the standard they set for themselves is good. Indeed, it’s the standard FOM sets for new entries. It only seems fair to judge current teams by that same standard, and as it stands, all but two teams in F1 are failing to meet that standard.
Edvaldo
22nd April 2024, 1:46
Because that’s not enough for them.
A top team expects a top car. If its far from the top, theres an issue. It doesnt matter in the slightest if theres a thousand cars worse than theirs.
Red Bull was threatening to leave the sport when they were 4th fastest. Ferrari is in crisis whenever they dont get podiums.
They know theyre not racing Haas or Sauber, so no reason to be satisfied to be faster than those teams.
Pete
21st April 2024, 17:37
It’s ok, we’ve figured it out this time. We’ll be really quick next time.
Oh… slow again. Ok but we’ve seen the data and we know exactly what we need to do now. Next race we’ll be rapid.
Slow? Don’t worry we’ve got some updates coming next race.
Ok well the updates didn’t work but it was a setup problem. We’ll have it sorted next race.
I know – we finished 12th. It’s ok though because we’re bringing a whole new concept to the next race!
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
21st April 2024, 20:50
whats clear is that ferrari and redbull are better power units. and merc are fighting for 3rd in the constructors.
Bb
22nd April 2024, 2:53
Toto your made your first mistake by getting rid of Elliot for Allison, the team has gone backwards only reason why everyone thought he was a master engineer was cause your motor was far advanced its only cause RB couldnt get a decent motor had they had the merc motor RB would have the last 14 team champ only way yous gonna improve is if yous were granted a miracle and Mr Newey came on board i hate RB but facts are facts