Analysis of grands prix in Britain and Spain
“I don’t think we have seen how fast Mercedes can go during the race. They just tell their drivers what I’m doing in terms of lap times and adapt to save their tyres. Mercedes didn’t push yet, so we haven’t seen the real gap.”
Max Verstappen was adamant before the British GP that Mercedes kept performance in hand while sweeping the first three races of the season. Its average qualifying gap over the first four events was 0.999 seconds. At Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton took pole with a lap 1.022s faster than Verstappen’s RB16. The signs were ominous…
Late-race tyre chaos aside, it was another dominant display. Hamilton recovered from a slightly tardy start to control the race from start to finish – chased gamely but fruitlessly by team-mate Valtteri Bottas. With just over three laps to go, Mercedes was on for another 1-2 finish with Verstappen more than 14s in arrears. No sweat. Then chaos…
As Bottas later related, if the second Safety Car period – called after Daniil Kvyat’s monster shunt at Maggots – hadn’t messed with Mercedes’ strategy, those hard Pirellis would have been fitted later and likely maintained their integrity. Perhaps debris from Kvyat’s crash and Kimi Räikkönen’s shattered front wing was to blame? In which case, just tough luck rather than any Das-related consequence. Mercedes could also have asked its drivers to back off, but admirably chose to let them duke it out.
Hamilton limped home less than six seconds clear of Verstappen, suggesting Max might have nicked the race had he not made a precautionary stop after Bottas’ left-front tyre let go. But that ignores Red Bull’s fear Max wouldn’t last the distance either.
“The tyre that came off the car had about 50 little cuts in it, so had been through debris,” said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. “It was right on the limit.”
Where Red Bull can feel encouraged is Max’s race pace. That 14s gap before all hell let loose was much better than the 27s he trailed Lewis before Hamilton’s late pitstop in Hungary, or the monster 33.7s deficit at the finish in Styria. “I think we were within probably 0.3 to 0.4s today, as an average,” reckoned Horner. “It’s now our challenge to reduce that gap further.”
But any joy at having begun fixing aerodynamic “anomalies” that make the RB16 such a handful was tempered by that qualifying deficit. Hamilton’s Friday practice difficulties – his car lurching from oversteer to understeer between sessions, Mercedes only third fastest overall and neck and neck with Red Bull over longer runs, proved a false dawn.
Red Bull (and the rest for that matter) simply can’t match the low-speed aerodynamic efficiency of the W11, and the extra power Mercedes can produce for qualifying. Ferrari’s pre-fia plea bargain shenanigans of 2019 have pushed Mercedes HPP to new heights, in turn shafting 2020’s competitive spectacle.
Toto Wolff admits with this continual raising of F1’s bar that his team is “not making a lot of new friends”, but that’s not what this game is about – it’s about grinding your opposition to dust wherever you can. As Daniel Ricciardo says: “They have the ability to be the most complacent team on the grid, yet I feel they are the least complacent”.
Don’t be fooled by wobbly gearbox sensors and a couple of tyre blowouts. Mercedes is miles ahead.