The two races before the season finale were not very kind to Mercedes. The Silver Arrows struggled quite a bit on track and the W14 performance was well beyond expectations.
Red Bull has been unbeatable this season, we got that much down. The team from Milton Keynes is doing what no other team in F1 history has ever done. This year they have broken record after record while their competitors have been scrambling for their leftovers. Mercedes, to their dismay, has been one of them.
At the Brazil Grand Prix, while Verstappen won his 52nd career Grand Prix, Norris took another strong second place for McLaren. Alonso delivered one of the best drives in his career while battling Sergio Perez for third place. For Mercedes, however, there was no such satisfaction. Despite the decent qualifying sessions they simply lacked the pace to catch up to the other teams.
This has been an incredibly painful season for the Brackley-based team. The Brazilian GP was just another proof of Mercedes’ difficulty throughout the season. It was during the Sprint that they sensed something wasn’t right. Despite Russell qualifying fourth with Hamilton behind him, the Sprint didn’t go as planned. Hamilton in particular seemed to struggle in making the soft tyres last. In the end, he finished seventh with Russell in fourth position. And after the less than encouraging their eyes were focused on Sunday’s race.
For the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the situation did not improve much. After Fp1 was abruptly interrupted after just 9 minutes the team did not have much data to work on. Hamilton missed out on Q3 qualifying eleventh while Russell salvaged an interesting fourth place. However, the race did not as smoothly for them as they hoped.
What went down in Brazil
Mercedes recognized something was missing in the Sprint. After a good start where they picked up some positions, both Russell and Hamilton began to slide down the order. Russell was picked off by Perez, leaving him running a lonely race to the checkered flag. Both Mercedes drivers managed to keep the positions they started in after the checkered flag. However, the problems they manifested with tyre management and race pace were quite troubling.
As both Hamilton and Russell managed to get into Q3, they qualified respectively in fifth and sixth place. However, George Russell picked up a penalty for driving unnecessarily slow in the pit lane during qualifying, for this reason, he started eight. Despite not being in favorable positions at the start, when the lights went out they managed to pick up some positions. After a heavy collision between Alexander Albon and Kevin Magnussen, however, the Safety Car came out, and the race was red-flagged. When the lights went out for the second time, however, luck wasn’t really in their favor.
At the restart, Verstappen made his getaway while behind him the fight for second place was on. Hamilton locked up in Turn 1 as Norris had the inside line. These three held positions up until Turn 4 where Alonso with the slipstream got past Hamilton. Russell, behind Hamilton, had his hands full of Sergio Perez’s attack. From Lap 13 the Silver Arrows started experiencing some difficulties in managing their tyres again. By Lap 18 Perez had successfully managed to pass both Mercedes.
A sad ending at Interlagos
An undercut from Hamilton kept Perez at bay, at least for a little while. However, despite the Mercedes man defending, Perez skated past him in Lap 23. Russell didn’t have much luck either, and a few laps later Stroll passed him without much trouble down the start-finish straight. It didn’t get any better for the Silver Arrows and by mid-race Carlos Sainz caught up to them. Mercedes’ mare didn’t end there and in the end, the Brackley-based team only managed to score four points with Hamilton. Russell, unfortunately, had to retire due to high and worsening oil temperatures.
Throughout the race, Mercedes suffered severe rear tyre degradation that compromised their race. After the events of Austin, the team ran a conservative ride height. The reduction in underbody downforce was compensated for by the use of a big rear wing but at a cost in drag. In fact, Hamilton noted that despite being in Gasly’s DRS zone he was still being left behind by it on the straight. Also, Russell retired after his power unit was showing signs of imminent failure. This was due to be the engine’s final race anyway because its mileage limit was approaching.
Toto Wolff described the team’s weekend as the worst he’s ever seen. “Inexcusable performance,” he said to the Sky Sports team, following the race “There’s not even words for that. That car finished second last week, and the week before, and whatever we did to it was horrible. Lewis survived out there but George… I can only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing. It shows how difficult the car is, it’s on a knife edge.”
Las Vegas
Russell started the Las Vegas Grand Prix on medium tyres while Hamilton was on a scrubbed set of hards instead. Hamilton was involved in a collision with Carlos Sainz. After a Virtual Safety Car entered in Lap 2, Russel was in third place behind Leclerc and Verstappen. On Lap 4, however, Norris spun by himself, and this time a Safety Car was required.
The nightmare continued for Mercedes as Hamilton, who rose up to fifth place, started dropping down the field due to a puncture after a collision with Oscar Piastri. He then made it safely into the pits. The real challenge started for him when he came out of the pits in 18th place. In the meantime, Russell made contact with Verstappen, so unsurprisingly this called for another Safety Car to pick up the debris. Hamilton then began to hunt down his rivals in the hope of scoring another podium.
In the end despite Russell’s penalty, Mercedes managed to score double points. Hamilton had in fact ended the race in seventh place with Russell just behind him. So despite the difficult weekend, Mercedes showed quite some resilience on track. The battle for P2 in the Constructor Championship is still on in between Mercedes and Ferrari. So the Las Vegas Grand Prix revived the team’s hopes going into the final race in Abu Dhabi.
