Mercedes does not understand its post-summer drop in performance
Having struggled for pace since the sport returned from the summer break, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has stated that the Brackley-based outfit needs to find out the cause for the drop in performance.
Mercedes looked strong in all practice sessions at Monza, and expected to be in contention for pole positions, but George Russell and Lewis Hamilton only managed a third and sixth spot on the grid.
The seven-time world champion performed a great start, and tried to stay close to the sharp end of the field, but he was steadily losing connection to the leading Ferraris and McLarens.
In the end, the Briton finished down in P5, leaving him slightly disappointed after another race where Mercedes lacked race pace compared to Ferrari and McLaren.
His team-mate Russell misjudged the situation coming into the first corner, and made a slight contact with the back of Oscar Piastri’s car. Having been forced to perform a front wing change, the Briton ended down in seventh.
Reflecting on the Monza round, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff stated that while his outfit displayed better pace than in Zandvoort, it was still away from what they had expected.
"Congratulations to Ferrari and Charles Leclerc on a well-deserved victory today. It is always a special moment when the scarlet red car wins here at Monza. Our own race was better than Zandvoort but still not good.
"We completed the two-stop strategy as we suffered from graining on the front left tyre, which made the one-stop unlikely. It was a difficult challenge to manage and hard to know whether to commit to the one-stop or push harder and go to the two-stop. Our pace today made it difficult to score much more than we did on either path though.
Wolff noted that Mercedes needs to find out what has caused the slight dip in performance since the sport returned to action at Zandvoort.
"We have not performed at the level we did before the summer shutdown in the last two races. When you don’t have the pace, it makes strategy decisions difficult as we saw today.
The Austrian continued: “We have some time to analyse why that is now before Baku and aim to come back stronger."
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin citied the tyres as the main limiting factor at the Italian Grand Prix, stating that Mercedes simply did not have the speed to look after the tyres while also maintaining the connection to the leading Ferraris and McLarens.
"We didn't have a strong race today. Heading into the Grand Prix, we knew that the tyres were going to be fragile and likely require a bit of management in order to make long stints work. Unfortunately, we didn't have the pace to be able to both manage the tyres and keep up with our competitors ahead.
"Lewis ended up P5 after lap one and came home in that same position. We tried the two-stop strategy against Sainz as it seemed unlikely we would be able to pass him on track. Unfortunately, we couldn’t recatch the Ferrari in the final stint.
“George meanwhile had a difficult first lap; he had to bail out at turn one when and then broke his front at the second chicane. That led to an early and long stop.
“We could have potentially gained a place on Verstappen if we had committed to the one stop but ultimately the opening lap damage was the bigger cost.
The British engineer echoed Wolff’s words, claiming that Mercedes have lost some pace compared to their direct rivals since the Dutch Grand Prix.
It looks like we’ve lost some pace relative to our rivals since the summer break. We will go away and investigate why that is and what we need to do to put in a more competitive. showing in Baku,” concluded Shovlin.
