Ferrari and Red Bull even faster for the time being
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is happy that Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were on the podium in Hungary, but that does not mean that the problems at the team have been completely solved, he says. The Austrian is certainly not overconfident and states that the W13 is still short of the cars of Ferrari and Red Bull.
The Hungarian Grand Prix was a significant boost for Mercedes. With Hamilton in second place and Russell in third place, the team earned valuable points in the Constructors’ Championship. Due to Ferrari’s tactical blunder, Mercedes is only 30 points behind the Scuderia with 304 points. The gap to Red Bull Racing is much bigger with 127 points. A first place in the constructors’ championship seems a long way off, but in theory Mercedes could still win it against Ferrari. Still, Wolff has a hard head in this, he says to the British autosport.com.
“We are still short of the cars of the top teams,” said the 50-year-old team boss. “You saw that Leclerc is still a dominant force on the right tire. But at least we were in the same race.” In the end, Leclerc fell back in Hungary due to a tactical blunder with the hard tire, which allowed both Mercedes drivers to take the podium. Wolff said it was a “perfect storm” and he doubts his team can repeat the same trick after the summer break. “I don’t know. I don’t want to say that we can fully participate again and win races, because I don’t think that is the case,” he sounds skeptical. “We did well in Budapest on Saturday and got the best possible result in the race, but I don’t think we’re close enough to Ferrari and Red Bull to really get into the fight.”
Wolff previously complained about the dominance of Ferrari and Red Bull, which he said would be “not entertaining”. That sounds pretty bitter, precisely because Mercedes has been by far the most dominant team in recent years. However, if Ferrari does not get the strategy right, there is a good chance that Mercedes will overtake the Italians in the constructors’ championship. By the way, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto was a lot more confident before the Hungarian Grand Prix than Wolff is now. Binotto said he saw “no reason why Ferrari cannot win the remaining ten races of the season”. There are now nine…
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl