Mercedes brought upgrades to the Miami GP weekend. With the aim of fixing some fundamental balance issues with the W15. However, the Mercedes drivers had very different weekends.
It seemed as though the upgrades had made some difference. Although the sprint didn’t go the way of the Silver arrows with Russell 12th and Hamilton 16th, the Mercedes under Hamilton seemed a lot more competitive.
Hamilton admitted to feeling more comfortable in the W15 in Miami, whereas Russell still struggled. The Mercedes drivers had very differing opinions on their weekends.
This continued into Sunday’s race, where Hamilton was 6th and consistently within Perez’ DRS and George was 8th and almost 9 seconds away from Yuki Tsunoda in the Racing Bull.
Russell was asked about the performance. He described the race pace as “no where” in comparison to teammate Lewis Hamilton.
He added that “it caught us off guard”. Emphasising the team weren’t expecting to struggle with race pace as much as they did.
The Brit admitted, “course a few more points,” but made it clear, “we know where we are as a team, a long way from where we want to be.“
Lewis Hamilton seemed to have an opposite experience.
In his post race interview, he praised, “honestly a really good day, great job by the team, really happy with the setup we finally got.”
Hamilton mused that the car was in a better ‘window’. Even saying “to be able to have some good battles with other drivers.” was a great step forward for the team.
The biggest achievement for the Silver Arrows was being able to hold on to the Red Bull of Sergio Perez at the end.
He confessed, “to be able to see the Ferrari and Red Bull” was a ‘great moment’ for the 7 time world champion.
The question of why Russell struggled so much while Hamilton was in the Red Bull DRS is still unknown. Although Hamilton talked about tweaking with the setup.
In Imola, the Mercedes drivers will see if this stability is here to stay.