Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports expert Martin Brundle sees that Mercedes has not succeeded with the car for the third year in a row and says that the W15 is the most difficult car to drive. Brundle stood on the sidelines in Australia watching George Russell and Lewis Hamilton compete not with other drivers, but with their own cars.
Mercedes went home without points and with a double DNF after the weekend in Australia. Hamilton retired for half the race due to engine problems, Russell crashed on the final lap of the race. It was a low point after a difficult weekend in which the drivers struggled with the car. “When I was at the track on Friday it seemed to me that Hamilton’s Mercedes was perhaps the most difficult car to drive,” Brundle wrote in his column for Sky Sports. “Through the fast chicane of turns one and two, the car was everywhere and nowhere,” he continues. “For the third consecutive season they have not found the right settings with the current generation of cars.”
Mercedes still has to learn to understand the car. Hamilton indicated that there is still some speed and performance hidden somewhere in the W15, but the question remains where. “Team boss Toto Wolff always has elegant words and phrases to move the story forward and focus on the next race or season, but it must be very difficult for him to see the lack of progress,” Brundle wrote. ‘And in addition, reliability was lost for Hamilton’s power source.’ However, Wolff insisted that Mercedes had made progress and many of the problems had been eliminated.
Contrast Mercedes-McLaren is enormous
Meanwhile, Mercedes customer team McLaren is above the German team in the standings, and scored significantly better at the Australian Grand Prix. “Norris told me after the race that he should have finished second, that’s how confident he was in his car and his pace,” says Brundle. ‘But Ferrari had Leclerc stop to take the hard tyre, and that meant he could do an undercut. As a result, Ferrari finally got that one-two. It says a lot that Norris was disappointed with a third place, as McLaren has had a very solid start to the season. Hopefully they can fine-tune the car to get into Ferrari and Red Bull territory, because both drivers are ready for that.’
