It has been three years ago that Mercedes in qualifying had to suffer a slump similar to this Saturday. In Imola 2022, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton drove to the starting positions eleven and 13 and were therefore not represented in Q3. Since then, at least one silver arrow pilot has always made it into the top 10 – until today.
From Mercedes perspective, qualifying in Monaco can be described as a bitter bankruptcy. Because neither Russell nor Andrea Kimi Antonelli were able to set a reasonable time in Q2, so that on Sunday they only get into the race from positions 14 and 15 – especially in Monte Carlo a particularly unwanted scenario.
If Antonelli was self -inflicting due to an accident in Q1, the technology at Russell suddenly went on the technology, so that the Englishman remained in the tunnel and made the red flag necessary.
The cause sounds strange at first: a bump wave is said to have simply parked the engine of the Mercedes W16. “This bump wave was already there all weekend, I felt it all weekend, but for some reason the entire engine switched off when I drove over the bump,” explains Russell.
“This is really disappointing,” he quarrels, because he believes that a strong result would have been possible for Mercedes. “I really have the feeling that we could have been in the top 4 today. Now we are not.”
Because after you had let yourself go a little in the set-up, Russell had gone back to the original set-up and immediately had the feeling that it was good again.
“It clicked in Q1. We were one of the few drivers who did not take a new tire set. I only drove a curve in Q2 and was almost two tenths faster. That alone would have been easy for Q3 with two tires,” he believes.
“We had two hard sentences, we had a real chance this weekend, but now everything has fizzled out. The weekend has run, so quite frustrating.”
Antonelli with “unnecessary error”
Teammate Antonelli could not even intervene in Q2 because he had driven into the guardrail in Q1 in the harbor chicane and had parked his car in the route limit.
The Italian speaks of an “unnecessary mistake” because, in his opinion, he would probably have come into Q2. As the day before, Antonelli had touched the guardrail of Isack Hadjar while steering into the harassment with the left rear wheel. “Then I just couldn’t give in to the right,” so that he drove head -on to the route limitation.
“That was my mistake, so I definitely have to look at it again and find out what I have to do differently,” he quarrels and knows that a lot more would have been possible. “The car definitely felt better in qualifying, and I tried to get into the rhythm. It’s just a shame to end it that way, because today everything is definitely on my cap.”
Does Mercedes rule wash forward?
Mercedes expects an extremely difficult race on Sunday, so it is probably a good time for the team that the FIA in Monaco tries something new and prescribes two pit stops. Because nobody knows what that means for the race, there may be opportunities for back teams.
“There will certainly be crazy strategies,” believes Russell, but sees a problem: “We are on P14. When people drive crazy strategies, half go a way, the other half. No matter which way we choose, we are still hanging behind five cars.”
The two strategies are called for him: pit stop after round 1 or stay outside for a very long time. What Mercedes will choose is still open.
“We will probably decide as soon as we know which tires the teams start on,” says Russell. “Anyone who starts on the C6 is planning a very early stop. If you start on the hard tire, you want to stay outside for a long time. As soon as we see you start, we will make the decision.”