The face of Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff after the race in Bahrain spoke volumes. Fifth place for George Russell and seventh place for record world champion Lewis Hamilton were not enough for the team, which was used to success.
“There are no positive things, not any positive news here,” Wolff summarized the Mercedes debacle in the desert soberly: “There is a lack of pace, there is a lack of downforce – and then of course nothing works, because then you drive yourself too broke the tyre. All in all, there is quite a lot to repair.”
After qualifying, the Austrian had indicated that the team would make radical changes to the “black arrow” in the coming weeks.
“Visible changes” to the Mercedes already in Saudi Arabia?
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes technical director, confirmed in a video after the race that these changes are indeed coming: “Of course, given the gap to the front, we will consider bigger deviations and more radical changes.”
“But these changes take time to become a faster solution in the wind tunnel. You can’t do them overnight. For any major change in geometry in this area, you have to do a lot of development work.”
He further explained that the “visible changes” would already be seen at the next Formula 1 stop in Saudi Arabia.
Mercedes wants to fight back to the top of Formula 1
In addition, Mercedes is hoping for a (further) update, which is to be used for the first time at the sixth race of the season in Imola, to make progress. But this upgrade alone would not be enough to be able to compete for race wins again.
“The gap in qualifying was quite big, we had a lead of over half a second. In the race it was even bigger. “We are working very hard at the moment to understand what we can do in the short and medium term future put us and ourselves in a better position,” Shovlin pointed out.