Mercedes has been on the up, kind of. While this campaign has been more successful compared to last season and 2022 regarding wins, the team has been hit with ups and downs throughout this season.
On the positive side, the team does have 3 wins this season, twice from Lewis Hamilton and once from George Russell. However, as the season has gone on, the team has fallen down the order as McLaren and Ferrari have become the latest challengers to Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
This is even more the case for George Russell, after a mediocre stretch of form since the summer break, he crashed out of the US GP last weekend in Austin, and said that the car is extremely inconsistent. He took the time to point out that there has been worse times, such as when all teams were getting used to the new ground effect cars in 2022, but it is still bad.
“I think in 2022, in the sort of porpoising era, without doubt that was far more unpleasant.
“But because of the nature of those cars, it was far harder to get close to the limit because you’re literally jumping around every single corner, and you knew that it was going to bite you.
“The problem we’ve got with this car at the moment is you think it’s not going to bite you, and you can achieve a really great lap. And then suddenly nothing changes, or you feel nothing changes, and the following lap you lose all of that performance.
“So without a doubt this is probably the most inconsistent our performance has been as a team in probably forever.”
Russell also mentioned that they will be running the same floor-spec after he ran a Miami-spec one last weekend.
“We’re both going to be on the updated floor.
“We’ve got a small difference in specification as a bit of a trial, but it’s not an update as such. It’s just in the realms of normal aerodynamical testing.”
He also mentioned that track temperature has become a major problem, as the car has struggled to stay consistent in hotter temperatures.
“The colour of the tarmac has an impact, so the darker the colour, the hotter the temperature.
“On the flip side, it’s a very smooth surface, so the tyres will be able to probably run hotter and be penalised less because it’s so smooth. That’s the theory.
“But we don’t know if it’s going to be good for us or bad for us. Austin was the best example: Friday qualifying, we’re both fighting for pole. Saturday qualifying, Lewis is out in Q1, I end up in the wall and nothing has changed.”
