It was an eventful race weekend at the F1 Bahrain GP for Mercedes. From grid penalties for both drivers after a qualifying infringement, to George Russell’s race that was riddled with technical issues.
After the race, Team Principal Toto Wolff reflected on the weekend in his print media session and how Mercedes are performing relative to their competition at this early stage of the season.
Wolff taking away positives despite challenges
The F1 Bahrain GP provided all drivers with a unique challenge due to the track’s surface that punishes the tyres in warm temperatures. Wolff had anticipated this to be a particular challenge for Mercedes, an area where they have struggled in recent years.
“We would have expected that Bahrain would have been one of the very difficult ones for us because of the warm ambient and very granular rough circuit.”
Both Mercedes drivers performed well in qualifying. Russell put himself on the front row and his rookie teammate Antonelli qualified in P4. However, the drivers were sent out before the red flag in Q2, which was caused by Esteban Ocon’s crash, officially came to an end. Both Mercedes drivers subsequently had to start the race in one grid position lower than they qualified.
While Antonelli only finished the race in P11 as Carlos Sainz clouted into him at one point, Russell managed to finish on the podium in P2. Despite these challenges, Wolff described the Bahrain GP weekend as overall successful.
“I think at the end, we qualified P2 and P4. We had a car that was able to be solid on the podium and that is better than we expected. You can call a race a success if you win, but in the circumstances, one could say it was much better than we expected.”
Antonelli finished out of the points
Antonelli had a disappointing weekend that ended with him finishing just outside of the points despite starting in P5. The young Italian driver chased Ollie Bearman for the final points position up until the final lap of the race, finishing half a second behind the Haas driver.
Antonelli completed a three-stop race, while the majority of the field did two stops. The Safety Car came out only a few laps after he had pitted for new soft tyres. Instead of staying out, Mercedes called Antonelli in for his third stop, losing him track position.
Wolff spoke on the unfortunate timing of the safety car and how it affected Antonelli’s race at the Bahrain GP.
“Probably Kimi was on the on the worse end today of everything. The soft obviously went away after pushing it very hard. We put on the medium that he pushed very hard and then we had the choice between the hard or three-stop soft.
“In my opinion, and we have to look at the data, if you would have given him the hard and the safety car wouldn’t have come out on the inopportune time, he would have finished in the top six, top eight.”
Despite a disappointing Bahrain GP for the 18-year-old, Wolff remained positive. The Team Principal described the weekend as a learning experience for the rookie driver.
“Because all of these factors came together, it’s just one of those races that will make him better over the long term.”
Trying to catch McLaren
Mercedes sit second in the Constructors Championship, 58 points behind McLaren after the Bahrain GP.
Wolff was asked about the likelihood that Mercedes will be able to catch up to McLaren’s strong pace. Though Mercedes have had a strong start to the season, Wolff emphasised how quickly that can change and that there is still work to be done to make the car quicker.
“If you look at where McLaren was last year, I think they were fourth and sixth or fifth and sixth, something like this, you can see how quickly you can turn the tide. Probably today we were a few tenths missing. Don’t know how we would have performed on the medium at the end. But definitely, we just need to put on our best game, see how it goes on the other tracks.”
When asked about the secret to McLaren’s current success, Wolff praised the team’s overall design of the chassis and how the car treats its tyres.
“I think that when a car is performing in the way the McLaren does, then it’s everything. It’s just good engineering. So they have the performance in the chassis, and they are able to nurture the tyres better than everybody else. That’s where I would see main contributors, which is obvious, these are the only contributors.
“And they have a great engine!”
