Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been waiting for Mercedes to provide them with the right car. But the Silver Arrows have been failing to do so since the cost cap era began in 2022. Moreover, since the German outfit started struggling, Red Bull used the opportunity to topple their rivals from the F1 throne. Clearly, at present, no team seems to give Max Verstappen and his team a challenge. Since 2022, the Dutch racer has won 37 races and helped the Milton Keynes outfit win 41 GPs so far.
On the other hand, Mercedes struggled to win more than one race. The last time they won a Grand Prix was in 2022 at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Their star driver, Lewis Hamilton, remained winless since the 2021 Saudi Arabian GP. It has been the longest winless streak for the seven-time champion. However, the great Briton assumed that his final year with the German outfit would be better than the previous two seasons. But that has not been the case so far. Hamilton had the worst start to the 2024 season. Lately, the two Mercedes drivers failed miserably in the Japanese GP. And Toto Wolff blamed the change in track temperature for his team’s failure in Suzuka.
Mercedes Boss Explained Why He Feels They Had A Mediocre Performance At Suzuka
After Max Verstappen won the race at Suzuka, the team principals were there for the post-race interview. During those interviews, Toto Wolff mentioned that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell had much better stints -second and third in the Japanese GP because of the drop in track temperature. There was a cloud cover that lowered the temperature by almost three degrees. As a result, the two drivers were able to extract the most out of the W15 car. However, during the first race stint, Mercedes performed poorly. But Toto Wolff mentioned that it was not necessarily because of the higher track temperature.
Moreover, the Mercedes boss mentioned that, as far as he knows, the W15’s performance has a direct relationship with track temperature. In the case of the reason for their poor performance at the first stint, Toto Wolff mentioned, “We simply had the aim of making one stop and that’s what we were stretching to.” The two Mercedes racers -Hamilton and Russell, had a mediocre outing in Japan, finishing at P7 and P9, respectively. Despite the result, Lewis Hamilton said he was happy with how he felt driving the car.
Lewis Hamilton Happy With W15 Pace At Qualifying
The seven-time champion and Mercedes always proved that they never lose optimism even when they are struggling so hard. Lewis Hamilton could only qualify at P7. But what he was happy about the qualifying session was how the car felt. Perhaps in the first three races in Bahrain, Jeddah, and Australia, the W15 car’s pace only disappointed him. That’s why Hamilton was glad about the pace of qualifying in Suzuka.
Moreover, Lewis Hamilton also mentioned the car felt the nicest in the last three years. That felt promising until the final day at Suzuka, Japan this year. Again, Red Bull and Ferrari dominated the grid. Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin and Lando Norris of McLaren had better outings than the Mercedes duo in the end of the Japanese GP.
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