Mercedes F1 has a “promising” theory about the recent fighting

The world champion outfit survived two tough races in Monaco and Baku, where it did not have the pace of main title rivals Red Bull.

A number of other problems, including a failed pit stop in Monaco and Lewis Hamilton, who accidentally pressed his “magic button” in Baku, caused team boss Toto Wolff to describe the team’s performance as “unacceptable”.

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But hidden behind the frustration of the results is the fact that the team believes they have gained a better understanding of their car, which is a good sign of catching up.

Mercedes Technology Director Mike Elliot has revealed that Mercedes took away from the Baku weekend a “promising” answer to its problems it discovered after fighting in Friday practice.

“We went into this weekend knowing that we would have some problems but probably not entirely expected to reach P2 on Friday,” he said in the team’s regular video debriefing after the race.

“We ran a series of tests to get a better understanding. Indeed, it has given rise to some theories that are really promising.

“Unfortunately, the test we did didn’t take place until FP3, after we’d had the long runs behind us. So while we’ve found good pace for qualifying, we probably don’t have the best set-up for the race weekend get and the actual race itself.

“This is something we need to look at. [It’s] Something we need to figure out how to build the setup around the changes we made and then carry that over to future race weekends where we have similar issues.

“The other thing to keep in mind is that both this track and Monaco are likely outliers and we hope we don’t have some of the problems we had in the next few races in position.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Elliot explained that the core of the trouble Mercedes endured in Baku had to do with warming up the front tires.

“I think one of the difficulties on this track is getting the front tire warm up and it’s also a track where you have to have real confidence. The walls are very tight and if you do something wrong you will stick it into the wall, ”he explained.

“Those two things kind of fit together because if you can go a little faster, if you get a little closer to the wall because you’re confident, then you get a little more heat into the tires because you have more duty.

“If you bring more heat into the tires, you get a little more grip and can go faster. So you’re getting into that kind of positive spiral that I mentioned earlier.

“When I look at the weekend I think Lewis found a small step in FP3 with the setup and that seemed to help him get a little more out of the car.

“All of a sudden we were struggling to really be at the top of the pace and Lewis drove that during qualifying. The lap that he put in second in Q3 wasn’t a lap. He actually was quickly throughout qualifying.

“At Valtteri, I believe Valtteri just didn’t get to that position. He didn’t find the last bit of confidence to be the same in this positive spiral.”