Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has confirmed that the team’s performance has dropped back to fourth fastest on the grid despite three victories prior to the summer break. He further stated that the Brackley-based team has gone back to the “underdog” status.
The 2024 F1 US Grand Prix turned out to be quite a tricky one for Mercedes. While both its cars were fighting for pole position in the Sprint qualifying, Lewis Hamilton failed to get out of Q1 during the main race qualifying. Meanwhile, George Russell crashed which required changing parts and he started the race from the pitlane.
Hamilton crashed out early in the race, but Russell carried on to finish in the points with an excellent strategy. However, the car looked incapable of fighting any drivers in the top three.
Reviewing the weekend, Toto Wolff mentioned that Mercedes is back to being fourth fastest on the grid.
“We’re back to underdog status,” Wolff said via Motorsport. “We are not back to the pre-summer situation. It’s not about coming into the weekend and thinking we’re going to win this. It’s more going into the weekend and thinking at the moment we’re the fourth team on the road.”
The team has had an inconsistent trajectory of development. The season was initially tough for Mercedes, but it managed to win three races before the summer break. Analyzing its performance after the US Grand Prix, the team is seemingly dropping back again.
Mercedes technical director James Allison assesses reason for Mercedes’ subpar performance at COTA
James Allison discussed the weekend Mercedes faced at the Circuit of The Americas. It is a circuit consisting of both long straights and twisty turns, providing multiple opportunities for overtaking and bringing out the most of all the teams on the grid.
However, the Silver Arrows seemingly suffered a lot during the main race despite a strong start to the weekend. Technical director Allison placed the blame on the ride height. He claimed that running the car too close to the ground can result in an unpleasant drive, and the team was “flirting” too closely to the ground.
“Why that did not materialise in the rest of the weekend, is the key question for us. My guess is that we were flirting a bit too closely with the ground. These cars like running low and you generally pick up lap time as you can get the car nearer to the ground. But, push it too far and the car starts behaving in an unpleasant fashion.”
“If you just hit a bump wrong, it will unseat the car, make the rear end come out on you and just deliver a level of performance that when it is good, it is great. But if you just hit a bump at the wrong moment or a crosswind at the wrong time, then you get punished for it. My guess is that we were just pushing our luck a little bit too much in terms of how near to the ground we got, how stiff we ran it.”
Mercedes has built a very comfortable gap in fourth place with 344 points in its bag. However, it looks extremely hard for eight-time F1 champions to finish any higher. Ferrari in third is in contention for the championship, and the gap between the two teams is 152 points.
