Mercedes once again misses the podium by a wide margin in Jeddah. Toto Wolff appears bewildered and announces plans for an analysis.
Mercedes is facing gloom and perplexity. At the second race this season in Saudi Arabia, the Silver Arrows were far from contending for the podium.
At the opener in Bahrain, George Russell finished fifth and Lewis Hamilton seventh, but in Jeddah, at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, their performance dipped even further to sixth and ninth places.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was understandably downbeat after the race. “Not good,” he briefly summed up his drivers’ performance to Sky, citing “so many question marks still” regarding the W15’s performance.
“We’re trying, but we’re losing half a second in three fast corners,” the Austrian analyzed, admitting, “We don’t know why. We’re going in circles.”
The Silver Arrows’ issues are not new. They have been struggling with downforce for a while. “We’ve been trying to understand this for two years,” Wolff explained.
Also, the strategy of not calling Hamilton in for a tire change during the early safety car phase didn’t pay off. The Brit held a top-five position for a long time but then dropped to ninth after a late switch to soft tires.
Together with Lando Norris, who was ahead of him, the 39-year-old future Ferrari driver tried to catch debutant Oliver Bearman, but the 18-year-old, filling in for Carlos Sainz who underwent appendicitis surgery, defended seventh place.
“Where we were, we were pretty much stuck in position. We wanted to try something different,” Wolff explained the strategy.
The season continues in Australia in two weeks. Before then, an analysis will be conducted to “see what’s happening.”