“We are still not having a car and power unit that can match the Red Bull”– Mercedes explains where they lack against Red Bull.
Red Bull seems to have an advantage over Mercedes this year, and the Brackley based team has been open about it. Though, the difference still seems to be marginal.
Toto Wolff has stated the improvements made by Mercedes in recent days, but he says that his team is still not par with Red Bull’s engine.
“Overall, today (Sunday) was very difficult to judge because of the circumstances, but we had a perfect car today in the wet and the drying up.”
“We are slowly starting to understand it, but according to the data, we are still not having a car and power unit that can match the Red Bull Honda,” said Wolff.
The red flag came in as a rescue
In the middle of the race, Lewis Hamilton crashed outside of the track but was not damaged enough to take a DNF. However, there were significant damages to the car.
He would have lost time hadn’t the simultaneous accident between George Russell and Valtteri Bottas hadn’t happened which enforced a red flag immediately and gave time to Mercedes to make minor repairs on Hamilton car without losing time on an added pitstop.
“On lap 31, it was difficult to imagine how things could get any worse. We had Lewis stuck in the gravel with a broken wing and Valtteri out with a massive amount of damage.”
“So, leaving here still in the lead of both championships is quite a relief, and I suppose we should be grateful for that. For Lewis, it was very much a race of two halves.”
“The early part was defined by the damage to the front wing after the contact with Max – that improved slightly when the footplate came away completely, but we still had a chunk of load and balance missing.”
“As such, we were a bit surprised when Lewis was able to close in on Max towards the end of the intermediate stint. The transition to dry was okay, the warm-up was a challenge, and I think we look worse than our competitors in this regard.”
“But as we didn’t have time to change the wing, it was always going to be a struggle to put Max under pressure. That became a bit of a moot point when Lewis slid off passing some traffic and lost a load of time and positions.”
“The suspended race allowed us the chance to repair the car, and in the final stint, we saw what it was capable of. It was a great recovery by Lewis and an impressive fastest lap.”
