“Strange” Las Vegas dominance can help deliver sweet-spot answer
Mercedes says its “strange” dominance of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix has given it some clues about what it needs to get its car in the sweet spot next year.
After a difficult spell since the summer break, as Mercedes fell back behind McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull, the German marque surprised even itself with how quick it was in Las Vegas last weekend.
It was fastest in every session, with George Russell winning from pole and Lewis Hamilton recovering from 10th on the grid to help deliver the team’s first 1-2 since the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix.
While Mercedes does not have a proper explanation as to why it was in a class of its own around the street track, it thinks the cool temperatures were a critical factor in allowing it to overcome a problem it has had in overheating its rear tyres this year.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “It’s cold. I think that clearly you can correlate where we’ve been strong.
“We’ve been strong in Silverstone, we’ve been strong in Spa, and then here in Las Vegas. I think it’s just keeping the car in its sweet spot, the tyres in the optimum window.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, 2nd position, sprays George Russell, Mercedes-AMG F1 Team, 1st position, with Champagne on the podium
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“It shows that the car can be very, very quick. We were two seconds quicker than our competition at times, when George was pushing, and for the rest of the day he was just managing his pace.”
One aspect that Mercedes does not fully understand though is why it escaped the graining problems that other teams – especially Ferrari – suffered in the race.
“Yeah, strange,” said Wolff about that phenomenon. “We were capable of pushing whenever we wanted to. There was no graining period, neither on the medium, nor on the hard.
“Charles attempted a few times to put pressure on George, which he defended great.
“I don’t know what the outcome would have been of that, but he fell off [the cliff], Leclerc, after a few laps. He couldn’t hold the pace, we didn’t ever see the sign of graining nor degradation.”
Wolff thinks there could also be an element of Mercedes’ biggest weakness – of a rear end that overheats its tyres because it keeps breaking traction – actually proving to be a strength this time in helping keep its rubber in the right operating window.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24 battles with George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“When you break traction and it’s hot, then you kind of swing out of the window all the time,” he said. “And when you break traction here, that was actually helpful to keep the temperatures up at the time.
“So clearly, there is a pattern that some teams really love the cold and extract a lot of performance. And there are some teams that have been so strong when it was hot.
“Singapore, the McLarens for example, they dominated and they just controlled it in the way they wanted. So, yeah, it would be important to find a balance for next year.”
While not yet having the full answer as to why things played out the way they did in Vegas, Wolff sees opportunity for Mercedes in digging deep into the data in the hope of finding something that can give it a better direction for 2025.
“This one is a really important result,” he said. “You have fluctuations over the weekend, and then normally you can see we’ve been good here [in practice], then we’ve been not so good in that session.
“But here, every single session, we were ahead. So lots of good data that allow us to say at least we know what our sweet spot is, and this is where we need to be. It’s then trying to find out how we can hit that target more often.”
