Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Principal Toto Wolff was pleased with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell’s performances at the Mexican Grand Prix, where they finished second and fourth respectively. The team had the potential for a double podium or even a race win, but saw this possibility slip away due to an inferior tyre strategy.
Wolff said that Max Verstappen’s winning strategy, a one-stop starting on softs followed by mediums, was not one the team was considering at Circuit Hermanos Rodriguez.
“Lewis and George did an amazing job today. We discussed whether the soft-hard was a viable strategy, but we didn’t really have the soft-medium strategy on our radar going into the race.”
Wolff said that despite the strategy error, he said that the team’s pace was extremely competitive, with nearest rivals Scuderia Ferrari only a minimal threat on race day. He asserted, however, that they shouldn’t be overconfident going into the final two races, as Ferrari may still have the upper hand moving forward.
“So, we just got it wrong today in hindsight, but we still showed strong performance and secured valuable points. Our performance gap to Red Bull today was small, and we had a good margin to Ferrari – however, we need to be careful about jumping to quick conclusions about the latter and wait to see what happens in Brazil.”
Mercedes may remain forty points behind Ferrari, but Wolff still has his eyes on second in the championship as well as a race win to punctuate the season.
“Our goals are still to win a race and fight for second in the constructors’ championship: we want to demonstrate that our car is fast and the whole team put just so much work into upgrading the car, it would be fantastic for them if we can make it happen for one of the last two remaining races this year.”
“It’s a peculiar mix of emotions after a weekend like this” – Andrew Shovlin
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin reflected on the team’s bittersweet weekend, as they showed impressive versatility in the high-elevation of Mexico City and drew closer to Red Bull Racing from a performance perspective, but were unable to make it stick due to their strategy.
“It’s a peculiar mix of emotions after a weekend like this; we are demonstrating progress with the car and the update that we brought to Austin has clearly delivered a good step in performance.”
“The team in Brixworth can also be very satisfied with the work they had done preparing and optimising the power unit for what is a very difficult track, given the altitude; this has been one of our strongest performances of the season, so it’s clear that they have done a great job on that side.”
Having praised the efforts of the team members and drivers in a winless season, Shovlin said that, in hindsight, the team would have matched Red Bull’s strategy, which ended up being far more competitive than they had expected.
“We also can’t fault the commitment of the drivers and the whole team towards the end of what has been a very long and very tough season, even when giving everything each weekend still isn’t quite enough to deliver a win. If we could run the race again, we’d have started on the soft tyre; we knew that a soft-medium one stop was a possibility, but we did not expect it to be quite so comfortable.”
Shovlin said that the team expected Red Bull’s mediums to degrade in the final stages, which ended up not being the case. With the final two races of the season ahead, Shovlin said the team will continue to hone in on their battle with Ferrari.
“Our strategy relied on their mediums dropping towards the end of the race, but that simply didn’t happen. On a positive note, we have closed the gap to Ferrari, and we’ll keep chasing them until the flag drops in Abu Dhabi. So, we have two races to go, a few days to regroup before the sprint race in Brazil, and still plenty to work for.”
Credit: Daimler AG