The first race of the season has been and gone and the teams have been analysing all the data that they can over the last few days to digest and learn as they move on into the season.
One team that will be looking to learn quickly, is the Mercedes AMG Petronas team. The results in Bahrain totally flattered what was a very lacklustre performance. Seeing both cars only managing to be fifth and sixth fastest on merit. However they will be counting their lucky stars for the additional two places (and additional points) gained because of luck at the unreliability of the Red Bull team.
However according to James Allison all is not lost yet. He is confident that they understand what the main issues are with the car and he believes they will become competitive within 2 to 3 races.
“It is a big job, We are something like 0.6 of a second, maybe more, off the pace of the leaders in Bahrain but we are carrying a lot of problems and a lot of problems that all have solutions and all of those solutions are within our compass to deliver.
“Yes, it is challenging but actually after winter testing I’d feared worse and I think actually the performance improvement we’ve managed to deliver from winter testing to the first race, while perhaps not visible to the fans and perhaps not reassuring to the fans, is reassuring in house here within the team and what we have ahead of us, the way in which we are approaching the problems and the way in which we will bring solutions also gives me some comfort that we will get back to a competitive car quite swiftly and that we will be able to pursue the objective we have of championships.”
James Allison- Mercedes post-race debrief
This will be music to the ears for Fans of Mercedes, Lewis and George. Who will be looking to extend their long championship run with 9 this year. The season is a long one, with 22 more races to go, the first being this weekend in Saudi Arabia.
Do you think Mercedes will bring that car back to the front this year and can they win yet another consecutive championship?