The Formula 1 weekend in Miami is once again not going according to plan for Mercedes. While George Russell was sixth in qualifying on Saturday, his team-mate Lewis Hamilton didn’t even make it into Q3. Before the race on Sunday evening, team boss Toto Wolff complained about the “unacceptable” performance of the W14.
Already in training it was indicated that Mercedes would once again only be lagging behind at the Miami Grand Prix. However, the team with the three-pointed star experienced its lowest point of the weekend so far in qualifying on Saturday. After the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton did not even reach Q3, George Russell had to settle for sixth place.
The culprit for the miserable performance of the two Silver Arrows was quickly identified by Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. “It’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen. We were last in Miami twelve months ago and the car is only slightly better,” the Austrian rumbled in a media round.
Formula 1: Mercedes cars “not a good car”
In the end, Russell was about a second behind Sergio Perez, who started from position one. However, the 51-year-old had no real reason for the poor performance of his drivers with the new W14.
“I think it’s not a good car and I can’t even say why. It’s just lacking everywhere. The base performance, our lack of understanding of the car, it’s all areas here in Miami. The performance is just really bad,” Wolff was annoyed and added: “The car is on P1 and P2 in one session, and then only on P6 and P13 in the next session. That’s just not acceptable!”
It is utopian for the Mercedes engineers to get the serious problems under control before the race. An attack by Russell on the podium hardly seems possible under the given circumstances. For Hamilton on Sunday (9:30 p.m.) it will only be about damage limitation and still reaching the points.