In the past few race weekends, it’s become abundantly clear that Red Bull is not the same dominant team it was in 2023. The upgrades did not work as expected and since Miami, they’ve struggled for consistent performance.
Max Verstappen has been the difference-maker in most races, bringing in the majority of the points in the last 10 races. Now in the second half, they will face a stern challenge and it will come from Mercedes.
Red Bull‘s biggest downfall has been its upgrades in the past few months. On the contrary, upgrades have been Mercedes’ biggest strength. The Brackley outfit’s vital front wing upgrade has been crucial. They introduced it on George Russell’s car in Monaco and later fitted both cars with it in Canada. Since then, the W15 has become a solid podium contender.
Apart from the front wing, Mercedes have brought several upgraded parts since Monaco and they all have worked like a charm. Thanks to it, the W15 gained four-tenths in qualifying pace and seven-tenths in race pace compared to the front-running Red Bull since the start of the season.
Since Canada, the team has secured at least one podium in each race. They secured three wins in the last four races with Lewis Hamilton getting two of them.
Mercedes has made the biggest progress since the start of the year.
The W15 gained 4 tenths in qualifying pace. Also, 7 tenths in race pace compared to Red Bull.
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— F1_MercHub (@F1MercHub) August 13, 2024
Mercedes has finally overcome the deficit after two years of consistent effort and now is arguably better than Red Bull, who are slipping back further down the pecking order. At least, the Silver Arrows’ goal of catching up to the vastly superior Austrian team is complete and Hamilton has contributed a lot to this progress.
Russell admits the Mercedes’ progress can be credited to Hamilton
The 39-year-old was adamant since the introduction of the zero pod concept of the W13, which he believed was flawed. However, after being ignored for over a year, the Brackley outfit gave in and changed the car’s design. Despite the complete overhaul, the car wasn’t producing the desired performance.
However, the design change was just a start and the W15 is a result of consistent feedback from mainly Hamilton. The #44 driver was quite pro-actively experimenting with setups in 2022-23 to find a solution to Mercedes’ problems. Eventually, all those efforts have paid off this season. Russell admitted this to the media.
Autosport quoted him as saying, “Obviously with Lewis’ experience, the car has been designed around his wishes with the car being sat further rearwards than we were last year, the Red Bull-esque sidepods on the side, and a slightly different steering rack. So, it’s good that the team have sort of been listening to that, but we need to see if that translates into lap time.”
Now, the W15 is producing desired lap times and beating Red Bull on merit. And Hamilton and Russell have made the most of this improved pace so far. So, with 10 races to go in the second half of the season, Mercedes are likely to hassle Red Bull even more.
