Lewis Hamilton and George Russell face bigger issues at Mercedes than first thought, according to F1 legend Emerson Fittipaldi. Fittipaldi pointed out that McLaren have the same engine but that the Silver Arrows but did not look as fast as them at the last race.
Lando Norris secured a podium at Imola, finishing ahead of Russell in fourth. Fittipaldi has warned something else needs to be improved on the Mercedes before the British pair can challenge for wins.
Speaking to VegasInsider, he said: “If you compare Mercedes to McLaren, they both have the same engine. But McLaren is running much faster than Mercedes.
“That means it’s not the engine, but also the chassis. There’s something there to be improved, for sure.”
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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is more excited by the team’s Barcelona updates but is confident they could make a step forward this weekend.
He said: “We’ll try something in Miami and then again in Barcelona. We had much less bouncing with our presentation model in the winter than the second specification that we then took to Bahrain.
“The data comparison between the two cars should bring us a step further.” Andrew Shovlin also suggested new upgrades are on their way in the coming weeks.
He explained: “Realistically, we feel that this is something we need to do step by step rather than one big overhaul to fix the problem, but we’re seeing encouraging signs. We’re hoping to bring new parts to the car as soon as possible, maybe in Miami, and hopefully see some progress on this issue.
“A lot of people are struggling with this and we know that raising the car’s ride height is one way to alleviate the problem.”
