Mercedes insists no problem with Austin upgrade despite Hamilton’s claim
Mercedes has denied there is a “fundamental” problem with its Austin Formula 1 upgrade and plans to stick with it for this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix.
The German manufacturer introduced a raft of aero changes for its W15 at the United States Grand Prix, but endured a tough weekend where both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton struggled with car characteristics.
And with the pair of them suffering costly near-identical spins at Turn 19 – Russell crashing off in qualifying and Hamilton putting himself out of the race – there were suggestions that the car developments had perhaps triggered some aero instability.
Hamilton himself reckoned that the upgrades could be to blame for the incidents, as he said the team needed to review whether or not to stick with them for this weekend’s race in Mexico.
But reflecting on the weekend, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said the problems that were encountered were not to do with the upgrade and were instead more based around the ride of the car on the bumpy track.
“I don’t think we have a fundamental issue on the upgrade, very much,” he said. “My thinking is it’s more interaction on aero and on mechanical stuff.
“Therefore we’re going to continue with the upgrade. It makes no sense to not, because there’s a lot of lap time you leave on the table.
“However, on the other side, you need to be very open-minded. George drove the July upgrade [in the race] because we didn’t have the [new] floor, and that seemed pretty competitive.”
George Russell, Mercedes W15
Photo by: Andreas Beil
While Mercedes plans to stick with its upgrade, the squad remains tight on spare parts after Russell’s qualifying crash.
And with only one of the new floors undamaged following that incident, the team looks set to split packages in Mexico.
“Clearly, we will be missing the floor that needs to go back to the UK and then be repaired for Brazil,” added Wolff. “So we’ll be running the spare specification.
“With Lewis, normally he would have all the parts, but I’m not 100% sure that he’s keen on running that. So we’re going to find out how we want to tackle that weekend.”
Wolff thinks the key thing that Mercedes needs to understand from what happened in the United States was why it was quick on Friday, with Hamilton having been fast enough for sprint pole, and then faded for the rest of the weekend.
“We need to get on top of why do we have a car that on Friday is by far the quickest, before the [Franco Colapinto situation [with the yellow flag]. Lewis was four tenths up and he would have been quickest.
“Then on a Saturday, it’s transformed. In the sprint race, we had a broken suspension. That’s one explanation. We fixed that in qualifying, but nothing would go anymore, and we struggled to have pace.
“Then in the race was the incident [for Hamilton] in that corner that came out of nowhere. He was not pushing at all. And where I sit at the moment, it’s 100% not Lewis’s fault.”
