According to technical director James Allison, Mercedes was `stung` by their poor points performance and reliability issues during Formula 1`s recent triple header.
Across the three recent European races in Italy, Monaco, and Spain, the Silver Arrows managed only 18 points. This tally is significantly less than their main competitors, McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull, and even two points fewer than the sixth-placed Racing Bulls.
Consequently, they lost second place in the Constructors` Championship to Ferrari for the first time this season.
Adding to their woes, the team experienced unusual car unreliability.
Kimi Antonelli retired in Imola due to a throttle damper assembly issue, and a power unit failure stopped him in Spain. George Russell`s Monaco weekend was compromised when a wiring loom problem in qualifying left him starting from a distant 14th on the tightest circuit of the year.
Ahead of this weekend`s Canadian Grand Prix, Allison described the team`s mood during the brief break between races as `a little reflective`.
“I guess from Barcelona, there were aspects of the way we approached the weekend, of the performance of the car in very hot track conditions that give us some optimism for the future,” Allison stated in Mercedes` latest race debrief video.
“But we`re all pretty stung by the DNFs and having been through a triple header where we didn`t score at anything like the rate we did in the opening races of the year.”
“So, hopefully, good looking forward, but I wouldn`t want to do those three races again like that.”
Reflecting further on the triple header, Allison made a comparison to his favourite childhood book, The World According to Garp.
He explained: “The main character in that book, Garp, he bought his first house on the basis that a light aircraft had crashed into it. He considered the house `pre-disastered`, and therefore nothing bad would happen to it in the future.”
“So you could look at these triple headers, we`ve definitely been `pre-disastered` with out-of-the-blue DNFs on very mature components that we would never have expected a failure like that.”
“So with a bit of luck, we`ll have better fortune in the future.”
“But more seriously, I think the more important thing of these three races were we got the first couple pretty wrong on the way that we set the car up.”
“Asked too much of the rear axle, suffered badly as a consequence, and we approached Barcelona with something of a different mindset. And in a track which would have murdered our tyres if we`d gone at it like we did in Imola and Monaco, we actually were a bit more ourselves.”
“And so looking forward and knowing that we can do more of that and lean deeper into that in the races ahead, I think that`s a good thing.”
Given this recent difficult period, Allison is optimistic that the upcoming visit to Montreal`s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve could be beneficial for the team.
Russell secured pole position there last year before finishing third after battling for the win in a chaotic, rain-affected race. Mercedes cars have also consistently qualified on the front two rows in the last 11 F1 visits to the track.
When asked if cooler temperatures in Montreal might favour them, Allison commented: “Well, that may come towards us, of course, if it is cooler.”
“But I think that more important than the absolute temperature is just the different nature of the challenge in Montreal. Big braking circuit, a circuit where it`s relatively harder to get the front and rear axle at the right temperature relative to one another.”
“And it`s a track where we`ve tended to find our feet relatively well in the past. So I`m looking forward to it. We`ve got one or two new bits to take with us and we`ll see how we get on.”
Antonelli `will know he`s got more to find`
The triple header was particularly challenging for rookie Kimi Antonelli, who failed to score any points.
While two races were ruined by technical failures when he was running in the top 10, the Italian teenager`s Monaco weekend was derailed by a crash in the first part of qualifying.
Allison stated: “Kimi`s young and full of all the optimism of youth, but I absolutely know that our failures in this period have taken a few chunks out of Kimi along the way.”
“Two DNFs, one caused by a chassis problem, one caused by a PU problem in just three races. That`s a pretty tough pill to swallow.”
“Leaving that aside, and Kimi looking in it himself, he will know that he`s got more to find.”
“But in amongst that, there`s been a lot of very positive work with him and brilliant experience for him running on a very dynamic track like it was in Barcelona, with the track temperatures pushing up towards 50 degrees and managing soft tyres in those conditions.”
“That is just putting experience into him at a very fast rate, and he was handling it pretty well.”
