Mercedes does not understand the performance loss in Miami
The technical director of Mercedes, Mike Eliott, does not understand how the performance could have been so different for Mercedes over the weekend.
It is no longer surprising, after five races, to assert that Mercedes is not at the level of performance where we expected them. The W13 has numerous issues that the team must address in order to hope to join the battle at the front between Ferrari and Red Bull. For now, the pontoonless concept introduced during winter testing is not working. However, everyone agrees that the potential is there, and that the car could be very good when Mercedes understands it better.
As since the beginning of the season, we didn’t really know where to place the Silver Arrows before arriving in Miami. They were capable of showing themselves as the clear third force on the grid or not seeing any of their two cars make it to Q3. But on Friday, Mercedes seemed to be in much better shape than what the German team had accustomed us to since Bahrain, with the highlight being George Russell’s fastest time in the second free practice session. However, for no apparent reason, their performance dropped on Saturday and George Russell didn’t make it to Q3. The two Britons qualified 12th and 8th for the race, before finishing 5th and 6th the next day.
Mike Eliott, the technical director of Mercedes, cannot find an explanation for this loss of pace between Friday and Saturday when asked the question. « It’s a very good question and it’s a question we’re currently trying to answer. I think if you look at the Friday sessions, it was probably the most competitive we’ve had this season. »
Between Friday and Saturday, we made some changes that were quite minor, but there were also changes in the conditions and we need to examine all this data, extract as much understanding as possible from it, and use it to move forward in the upcoming races.
The goal according to him is now to understand the car better and better. In fact, every time the car runs, we learn something new and that’s the goal of the game, to try to understand the car faster than our competitors. Even though, for the moment, we are a bit behind, there is a lot of effort, a lot of work to do to try to understand how to improve the car, how to take the next small step forward, how to get rid of the rebounds and how we can become competitive again compared to the leading teams, which is where we want to be.
