Mercedes-AMG F1 – Syndication Server

Hamilton saddled with lack of setup confidence after Q2 elimination in Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton puts his recent struggles down to inconsistencies with the balance of his Mercedes after dropping out in Q2 for the second race in a row at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Las Vegas saw Hamilton failing to reach Q3 in qualifying and he …

Lewis Hamilton puts his recent struggles down to inconsistencies with the balance of his Mercedes after dropping out in Q2 for the second race in a row at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Las Vegas saw Hamilton failing to reach Q3 in qualifying and he looked to be off the pace of teammate George Russell for the majority of the weekend in Abu Dhabi before being eliminated in Q2 once again. Hamilton told his team over the radio that something was wrong with his car, and says he doesn’t have any confidence in how it will behave at each turn.

“It’s just very loose; the car’s unpredictable at every corner,” Hamilton said. “In one corner it’s one way, in another corner it’s another, and it’s not a consistent car or balance. No setup change I can make seems to get it right, and it’s a struggle just to get out of Q1.

“These last two races have been a disaster for me, particularly in qualifying. I’ve had two 11th places. It’s very rare, but it’s the last race, so…”

Hamilton revealed that his setup was the same as Russell’s and, with the other car qualifying on the second row, he believes something fundamental is wrong but is now focused on trying to hold off Ferrari for second place in the constructors’ standings.

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“George managed to get the most out of the car today, finishing in P4,” he said. “It takes some good going for me to not make it into Q3 so we need to do a deep dive and try our best to move up tomorrow.

“The team here and back in the factory deserve a good result for the final race of the season, so we will work hard as always and hopefully it will pay off and we can find improvements ahead of tomorrow.”

Russell backed up Hamilton’s claims, as he doesn’t expect his teammate to be so far off his own pace.

“I think confidence is a huge thing, and if you start on the front foot you can just build from there,” Russell said. “I’m not too sure. There’s different theories week-in, week-out, but for sure Lewis isn’t a driver who is 0.4s off the pace this weekend, or whether it was last weekend, so something as a team we need to understand.”

Russell didn’t see Verstappen, rues lost podium in Vegas

George Russell believes he lost out on a podium as a result of the contact he had with Max Verstappen in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, saying he didn’t see the Red Bull driver. Verstappen was trying to overtake Russell into Turn 12 – the key corner …

George Russell believes he lost out on a podium as a result of the contact he had with Max Verstappen in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, saying he didn’t see the Red Bull driver.

Verstappen was trying to overtake Russell into Turn 12 — the key corner leading onto the long flat-out run along the Strip — but the Mercedes driver turned in with the eventual winner alongside him. Both cars picked up slight damage and Russell was handed a 5s time penalty for causing a collision, and says he hadn’t expected Verstappen to try a move there.

“Totally didn’t see him in, in the blind spot, wasn’t expecting the overtake,” Russell said. “I wasn’t even really fighting him because we knew that Max wasn’t our race. We just had to keep the tires alive and, you know, it was a comfortable podium just thrown away once again.

“…It’s really disappointing, very frustrating. And now heading into Abu Dhabi, only a few points between us and Ferrari.

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“The only piece of damage was the wheel cover, which, if anything, probably would have helped the graining by having that extra bit of cooling. If it wasn’t for the safety car we’d have continued and would have gone on onto the podium. I don’t really know what to say, really. Just really frustrated with [the race], with this season as a whole. Yeah, I can’t really catch a break.”

Russell says his pace was comparable with Charles Leclerc at times but he was unable to show it due to the circumstances, and feels that Mercedes has had more bad luck as a result of its car not being as competitive as it wants.

“When the car’s quick, luck always seems to be on your side and when the car’s not, you never seem to have long,” he said. “Ultimately the pace isn’t quick enough. A number of these issues have come from not being fast enough. Not a lot more to say, really.

“I think Charles looked really fast out there. He was managing the tires a lot…on the medium stint, and managed to extend a lot; that was quite impressive. But on the hard tire, I felt pretty competitive. We all got stuck behind Alex for quite a long time. We know they’ve got good straight-line speed and it was difficult to overtake.”

Brazil a ‘mind-boggling weekend to understand’ for Mercedes

The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a “mind-boggling weekend to understand” for Mercedes due to a lack of performance that yielded just four points on Sunday. George Russell finished fourth in the Sprint but struggled more than he expected, with Lewis …

The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a “mind-boggling weekend to understand” for Mercedes due to a lack of performance that yielded just four points on Sunday.

George Russell finished fourth in the Sprint but struggled more than he expected, with Lewis Hamilton limited to seventh on Saturday. The main race was even more surprising, with Russell slipping back to tenth before retiring, and Hamilton limping home in eighth having run third early on.

“Mind-boggling weekend to understand,” Russell said. “Had relatively high expectations and just absolutely no pace at all. Same car as the last five races, so clearly we’ve got something wrong with the tires, and in a Sprint race weekend when you get it wrong you can’t make amends for those issues.

“I mean…it’s…so many question marks. It’s the same car we had since Austin, where the car’s been capable of podiums every race – even before then, Singapore, Qatar, capable of podiums. This is clearly a substantial, one-off event. We need to understand what we’ve got wrong because right now we don’t really know.”

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Russell says the high downforce setup approach Mercedes took didn’t provide it with any of the expected gains.

“Definitely a sitting duck,” he said. “The choice we made to run a bit more downforce — when you run more downforce you’re meant to gain the speed through the corners, keep the tires under control, and that wasn’t the case. We didn’t have the benefit; we only had the negatives.”

Teammate Hamilton was also downbeat, although says he had expected such a performance after the way the rest of the weekend had panned out.

“I knew that we would have a relatively difficult day,” Hamilton said. “Nothing changed in the car from yesterday to today, so I knew it would be a tough one. Yesterday I just ate through the tires with an unexpected lack of pace. I think I drove better today in terms of making my stints, but we were just slower.

“My guess is that the floor’s not working. The floor’s just not sucking us down, so that just pushed us to go to a higher wing. We’re just massively draggy on the straights. We’re losing so much time on the straights, there’s nothing I could do about it. We were just sliding through the corners, so we have to look into why that is the case on this rough circuit.”

Mercedes ‘clearly got something wrong’ in Brazilian GP sprint

Mercedes’ lack of performance in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix showed the team “clearly got something wrong,” according to George Russell. Interlagos was expected to suit Mercedes after Russell’s double victory across a Sprint weekend last …

Mercedes’ lack of performance in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix showed the team “clearly got something wrong,” according to George Russell.

Interlagos was expected to suit Mercedes after Russell’s double victory across a Sprint weekend last season, and despite only qualifying fourth on Saturday he quickly climbed to second on the opening lap. From there Russell went backwards and finished fourth, some 26s behind race-winner Max Verstappen and over 20s behind Lando Norris.

“Really unexpected,” Russell said. “We didn’t expect to be the fastest; we thought we’d be a couple of tenths behind Max, maybe similar pace to Lando, but clearly we got something wrong today. As always it’s down to tires — tires just dropped off. Story of everybody’s season, and we need to rectify it because that was a disappointing one.

“We know how sensitive the tires are to the conditions. If it’s going to be four or five degrees colder tomorrow, that might transform everything. Not all is lost yet. I guess everybody in the paddock wished they understood it, but it’s a bit of black magic.”

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While Russell expected it to be tough to hold off cars that were within DRS range, he says that weakness should have made tire usage a strength for Mercedes.

“We’re the slowest on the straight at the moment, so we’re very vulnerable if anybody gets DRS behind us,” he said. “We knew that was going to be the case, but that wasn’t the reason for our lack of pace. If anything, being on probably a bit more downforce than everybody else, we were expecting to have less tire deg. We really need to understand what went wrong.”

Things were even worse for teammate Lewis Hamilton who slipped to seventh and a little over half a second clear of Daniel Ricciardo in ninth.

“It was a very tough race,” Hamilton said. “I think we got a good start, then balance… We tried to get right balance of the wing. Just a lot of understeer, snap oversteer and tires just dropped off. In the middle sector, huge understeer. I don’t know whether we got setup wrong… We probably got setup wrong but it is what it is.

“It’s not frustrating [that the car can’t be changed]. It’s frustrating that the car is the way it is.

“The last couple of races we’ve been excited that we’ve been progressing. It’s been really positive to see, and we come to another track and then you have the worst deg that you’ve had for ages. So it’s like you don’t know what to expect, but only a couple more races with this car then it’s gone so I’ll be happy … This year you’re just counting down the days, trying to enjoy every day.”

Hamilton studied Verstappen during USGP sprint to help Mercedes development

Lewis Hamilton says the time spent close behind Max Verstappen in the sprint at the United States Grand Prix was productive as he watched where the Red Bull’s advantage is relative to Mercedes. Verstappen started from pole and held off Charles …

Lewis Hamilton says the time spent close behind Max Verstappen in the sprint at the United States Grand Prix was productive as he watched where the Red Bull’s advantage is relative to Mercedes.

Verstappen started from pole and held off Charles Leclerc at Turn 1, with Hamilton then able to take advantage and also pass the Ferrari in the following corners to run second. After keeping pace with the Red Bull for a number of laps, Hamilton slowly faded but says he was paying close attention to Verstappen’s car and the way it was performing.

“I didn’t get that great a start but obviously it was quite aggressive into Turn 1 and quite a good battle with Charles,” Hamilton said. “After that the car was feeling pretty good so I was just attacking from the get go and [got] as close as I could while the car felt like that, but I just couldn’t push the gap enough to Max. Then, once I was out of his DRS, he just started eking away and cruising.

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“Not that I haven’t seen it already this year, but it was a good position to be able to watch what Max’s car was doing and how it was behaving. I got to watch for a while and see where they are particularly strong, which we can obviously see in GPS, but still… At least we know where we are — if there is anywhere we are stronger, and if we are weaker. I will download that to the team.”

Eventually finishing over 9s adrift in second place, Hamilton was coy on specific details about what he saw, but noted what an impressive job Red Bull has done and how tough he believes it will be to erase the gap completely over the winter.

“I was trying to get close enough!” he said. “Next time I will get one of those Go-Pro sticks! I learned that we have a lot of work to do — everyone behind these guys have a lot of work to do. It is no small feat for us to truly catch them for next year. They will be progressing at a steep rate as they have got an amazing development team and that will make it even steeper for us to close that gap, but I am going to put 100 percent faith in my team that we can do it.”

Hamilton confident Mercedes has leveled up everywhere

Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes has made a step forward in all areas after qualifying a little over 0.1s from pole position at the United States Grand Prix. Max Verstappen’s deleted lap time was only 0.005s faster than Charles Leclerc, with Lando …

Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes has made a step forward in all areas after qualifying a little over 0.1s from pole position at the United States Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen’s deleted lap time was only 0.005s faster than Charles Leclerc, with Lando Norris second ahead of Hamilton, meaning four teams were covered by 0.144s. After such a close fight, Hamilton suggests Mercedes’ new floor has helped close the gap at the front and upped overall performance.

“Good session for us,” Hamilton said. “Really grateful for the improvements the team have made with the car. They’ve worked so hard to bring some upgrades and for us to be this close to McLaren, Ferrari and even the Red Bulls is a showing of how hard everyone is working.

“The car feels almost the same, it’s just leveled up pretty much everywhere.

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“Too early to say [if a win is on the cards]. None of us have done any long running so I have no idea. Maybe with the Red Bull not in the top three it makes it a better and closer battle…because they’re often quite a bit ahead and disappear into the distance. Hopefully the three of us can have a tight battle.”

With technical director James Allison having described the new floor as a “bellwether” for 2024, Hamilton disputed that claim but says it is a positive step forward.

“I don’t know really if it’s a signifier of anything for next year,” he said. “As we continue to experiment, we get more and more knowledge of where we’re going, where we’re routing the flow of the car. The floor is not a huge amount different. There’s always hype around someone’s upgrade, but the rest of the car is exactly the same and there’s lots and lots of areas where we can improve.

“But this is an improvement and it’s one of the first upgrades that I’ve actually felt over the last two years, so that’s a positive. We just need two or three times this step to put us in super-competitive mode, which I believe the guys can do.”

Hamilton shoulders blame for Turn 1 clash with Russell in Qatar

Lewis Hamilton took the blame for a collision with George Russell at the start of the Qatar Grand Prix and insists their relationship “isn’t broken.” The two Mercedes drivers came together on the entry to Turn 1 at the start of the race, with …

Lewis Hamilton took the blame for a collision with George Russell at the start of the Qatar Grand Prix and insists their relationship “isn’t broken.”

The two Mercedes drivers came together on the entry to Turn 1 at the start of the race, with Hamilton on soft tires attempting to go round the outside of both Russell and Max Verstappen but squeezing his teammate slightly and catching Russell’s left front wheel with his right rear.

Hamilton’s wheel detached in the contact and he retired, with Russell spinning and getting damage that limited him to fourth in the race. After each driver blamed the other at the time, Hamilton took the blame after seeing replays.

“I’ve watched the replay and it was 100 percent my fault and I take full responsibility,” he wrote on social media. “Apologies to my team and to George.”

With the pair having come close to incidents in Japan too, before viewing the replays Hamilton insisted the pair were on good terms and would not have any issues as a result of the contact.

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“The relationship isn’t broken,” Hamilton said. “I don’t have any problems with George. We have a great relationship and we always talk about things. This is definitely unfortunate and I’m sure he was frustrated in the moment, like I was. But we’ll talk about it offline and we’ll move forwards. Just apologies to all the team.

“It’s frustrating, whoever you touch with, but it’s frustrating when both of us spun out and ultimately went down the order.

“I had the soft tire and everyone around me had the medium tire. I needed to get by. I tried going around the outside of Max but just didn’t work out.

“I think in the heat in the moment I felt… it was obviously frustrating because I felt this tap from the rear end. But I don’t think George had anywhere to go. I think it was just an unfortunate scenario. I’m happy to take responsibility as that’s my role. I need to go back and look at it but I don’t feel it was George’s fault.”

Wolff dismisses Verstappen record: ‘It’s for Wikipedia’

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Max Verstappen’s win in the Italian Grand Prix that gave him a record 10th straight victory wouldn’t be important to him as “it’s for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway.” Verstappen remains unbeaten since …

Verstappen remains unbeaten since Sergio Perez won in Baku in April, setting a new benchmark in Formula 1 and eclipsing Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of nine straight wins. After overtaking Carlos Sainz to win at Monza, Verstappen said he was proud of the achievement but Wolff claims a Mercedes driver didn’t manage to achieve such a feat due to the way wins were shared between teammates.

“Our situation was maybe a little bit different because we had two drivers fighting against each other within the team,” Wolff told Sky Sports. “I don’t know whether he cares about the record. It’s not something that would be important for me, any of those numbers. It’s for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway.”

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Expanding on the topic a little later, Wolff states his view is based on how he personally viewed such records rather than whether it’s an impressive achievement or not.

“We just talked about it. For me, these types of records are completely irrelevant. They were irrelevant in our good days in Mercedes. I don’t know how many races we won in a row and I didn’t even know that there was a count for how many races in a row you win. Therefore, asking me on commenting on some achievement is difficult because it never played a role in my whole life. The result itself shows that a great driver in a great car are competing on an extremely high level.”

The Mercedes team principal says he would be more impressed if Red Bull was to win every race this season, something that has never been achieved in Formula 1 if the 1950s Indianapolis 500 results are taken into account.

“I think they need to screw it up themselves. They are on track to win every race this season and that, by the way, is a record that I would think is a good one, because that is perfection. We didn’t make it (in 2016) because our two drivers pushed each other out in Barcelona and then we had an engine failure in Malaysia.”

Russell finding his way again after mid-season struggles

George Russell says he has gone back to basics to recover from a mid-season dip in form and expects to be stronger in the Italian Grand Prix than over one lap after qualifying fourth. Mercedes appeared to be on the back foot heading into qualifying, …

George Russell says he has gone back to basics to recover from a mid-season dip in form and expects to be stronger in the Italian Grand Prix than over one lap after qualifying fourth.

Mercedes appeared to be on the back foot heading into qualifying, but Russell outqualified Lewis Hamilton for the second time in a row since the summer break. Hamilton will start from eighth and, after struggling to match his experienced teammate earlier this year, Russell says he’s found how to return to his previous level of performance.

“It’s sort of semi going back to basics,” Russell said. “[There’s been] a really good reset and refresh from my engineers. I’m pleased with my personal performance [after the break], back to my levels of the first six races. I lost my way a bit before the break.

“I think the tires are a huge factor…slightly going back to basics and not trying to reinvent the wheel with setups, and just accepting the pace of the car. P4 was the maximum potential today, but if I went in trying to do a lap for pole, trying to find three extra tenths, I’d have ended up in the gravel because three tenths extra is not possible.

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“We know how important the tires are. Prime example: Q1, P13; Q3, P4, and the only thing changed is the tires.”

With both Ferrari drivers starting ahead of him, Russell believes Mercedes will have an advantage when it comes to race pace against the Scuderia on Sunday that could open up podium opportunities.

“Really happy with fourth,” he said. “We set the car up a bit more for the race because we weren’t expecting to be as quick as a team as we were, so a great place to start.

“I think we’ll have good race pace. The tire deg doesn’t look very high; it never is here in Monza and, with the skinny rear wings, overtaking isn’t that easy…even when you open the DRS you only gain one or two tenths.

“We need to be fast around the pit stops. I expect to have better deg than the Ferrari, so the chance is to be faster around the pit stops and do something slightly different.”

Wolff says Mercedes ‘sails are set for 2024’

Team principal Toto Wolff says Mercedes has turned its focus to its 2024 car after understanding the development direction it needs to take following a tough first half to this season. Mercedes retained its radical sidepod concept at the beginning …

Team principal Toto Wolff says Mercedes has turned its focus to its 2024 car after understanding the development direction it needs to take following a tough first half to this season.

Mercedes retained its radical sidepod concept at the beginning of 2023 as it looked to bounce back from a largely uncompetitive first season under new regulations last year, but found itself even further off the pace of Red Bull. Since a major upgrade was introduced in Barcelona, the W14 has been more consistent and Mercedes is now a relatively comfortable second place in the constructors’ standings, so Wolff says a new car for next year has become the priority.

“The sails are set for 2024 now,” Wolff said. “We still have some updates to come with W14, but I find focus switching to next year good, because there is so much we can optimize on the current car without looking too much into upgrades.

“Let’s see how we can get it into more of a sweet spot while gaining lots of understanding for next year. The more learnings we can find, the better placed we will be for 2024 and beyond.”

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Wolff says the work being done on next year’s car is with an increased level of confidence based on the lessons Mercedes has learned over the first part of this season, as well as the level of competitiveness of its power unit.

“The positives are that we clearly see some development route that functions. We understand where we need to add performance. It’s a frustrating process because it takes time to fundamentally change a car when you decide on a different development direction. And it takes a huge amount of work from everyone involved to get the car in a better place. But there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“It’s also been a positive season so far from a power unit perspective; everyone at Mercedes-AMG HPP has worked hard and done a great job giving us a power unit that’s at the top of the pack.

“The collaboration is critical. The teamwork between the two factories is stronger than ever. That’s why it’s been a strong season so far from a power unit perspective. The hardware freeze last year, and this year’s software freeze, has limited the scope in which to work. That hasn’t deterred everyone working there though and we’ve seen fantastic reliability combined with great performance and delivery.

“That is also true for the customer teams. To varying degrees, they’ve all enjoyed positive first halves to the season and that is testament to the work of HPP.”