A low seventh place for Lewis Hamilton was accompanied by an urgent questioning of his strategy by the world champion, who lost two places to Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez through the pit stop sequence.
Then there was the very public embarrassment of the crew struggling to remove the right front wheel from Valtteri Bottas’ car, forcing an otherwise healthy machine to shut down.
Less obvious was the failure to fully master the setup and the warm-up of the tires, which caused Hamilton in particular to lose track on Saturday morning, which led to changes and a kind of boat for qualifying.
He still only started in seventh, and in the race it was tire concerns that put Mercedes on a strategic impasse and pushed Hamilton to an early stop that didn’t pay off.
It may be easy to say that under pressure from Red Bull – with Ferrari taking part in Monaco – the team is making more mistakes than usual.
There were other collective mishaps. Hamilton’s off at Imola, from which he was only able to recover because of the safety car triggered by the collision of his own teammate with George Russell, was one of the most public.
A problem with the exhaust sensor cost Botta’s time in Portugal, and the Finn suffered several problems with warming up the tires during races. And before Monaco there was an occasional pit stop a little off the course.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
It wasn’t a flawless season, but neither was it a catalog of catastrophes. The team showed their class by quickly recovering from a poor Bahrain test and they’ve usually got Hamilton’s strategy just right, aided by the brilliance of the driver behind the wheel.
Despite the specific problems in Monaco, the team still believes Bottas was fighting for pole before the red flag ended the third Q3 prematurely. And while a lot went wrong in Monaco, Hamilton managed to score the point for the fastest lap.
The bottom line is that no team / driver combination can have a perfect season if there are 23 chances to go wrong.
Mercedes and Hamilton can’t say that about themselves in the past, even in the years when they easily won the title. In fact, the Monaco and Singapore street events were often outliers that resulted in the Brackley team having weekends.
“We were always on our back feet, it seems like a kind of cursed racetrack for us,” said Toto Wolff in Monaco.
“It’s a bit like in Singapore, where we came to the problems very late. If you start on your rearfoot, you don’t have any grip or confidence in the car, and it’s very difficult to recover.
“It was a bit easier for Valtteri, who had the pace, but overall a weekend to forget. Well, on the contrary, we won’t forget it because tomorrow we’re going to stick our finger in the game that hurts the most and try to learn. “
The team regularly has to master difficult races and therefore knows how to react and deal with them.
“Unfortunately, we’ve all taken part in a race weekend like this before,” said Technical Director James Allison.
“And we know the only thing you have to do is get up and find out why we were slow, since that slowness is the main pain – and deal with it and come back and repeat it all over the next race, and hopefully over and over until we find a lead that can cope with a mistake like today. “
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12, Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR21
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
Strategy chief James Vowles admitted that things can go wrong if you run on the sidelines in all areas – and are put under pressure by a strong rival like Red Bull.
“I think it’s fair to say that one race per season is going to be very bad,” said Vowles. “I think for me this is just an indication that we are a World Cup fighting team, we are at the limit of pushing every limit.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s the car’s performance or the pit stops or human endurance, or if the drivers risk everything to risk everything for every point at their disposal. When you are there, you will Make mistakes.”
As Wolff and Allison suggested, the key to making mistakes like this is to learn from them – and not to repeat them.
The old slogan “Win as a team, lose as a team” may be a cliché, but it works at Mercedes, where after weekends like Monaco you don’t have to be afraid of soul searching and troubleshooting.
It is a culture that Wolff has successfully conveyed over the years and that promotes openness and honesty in the debriefings.
“I’ll start with our core and our ethos within this team,” said Vowles. “And it is really one of standing up in the face of adversity, accepting that mistakes and failures will happen.
“What really matters is how the team consolidates itself afterwards. How to take the details apart and learn from them and, above all, get stronger at the next event and from then on.
“This culture underpins this team and what happened in Monaco this weekend will only strengthen that. Already this morning [Monday], we all do our best to understand every single bit of performance data and reliability and pit stop data so that we can move forward as a unit and as a group. “
Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, has a pit stop problem that is retiring
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Vowles emphasized that even after seemingly successful weekends, there are always lessons to be learned and improvements to be pursued.
“What matters is not the mistakes you make, but the corrective actions that happen afterwards and how the team connects afterwards,” he said.
“We will treat this race like any other race. We break everything down into detail, split up into different groups in the factory to understand what we could all have done better.
“Even in Barcelona, for example, there were things that we could improve and that is no different in Monaco, there are just more of them. And it’s how to correct and move on with all the little details that ultimately correspond to what the car will be “and how the team will be for the rest of the season.”
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Apart from the pit stop problems, the team has to find out what it could have done better in Monaco in terms of setup and tire use. Even if the concrete answers do not apply directly to other routes, all of this contributes to a deeper understanding of the W12.
“If you look at how our team has performed at this track over the years,” said Allison, “you will see that we have struggled here in the years of easily winning championships.
“And while we were generally down a path that delivered a car with a broadsword weapon that you can attack most routes with, that was an Achilles’ heel.
“And above all, ironically, a car that was one of its best weapons to use its tires track after track, on this particular track we always struggled a bit with it.
“We never really make them happy on a Saturday, so our starting positions are low.
“And then on Sunday, although we are fine at the start of the stint, at the end of the first stint, where most of the crucial action takes place on this rather special track where there aren’t many opportunities to overtake other than around this first one. ” Stop, we usually run out of ideas when a tire died a little earlier than our competitors.
“It is to understand what we have missed for a number of seasons and we have to use the first principles to find out what we are doing wrong on this track and what we are simply not doing right year after year.” for here. “
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
The bad Monaco weekend was exacerbated by a terrific one for Max Verstappen and Red Bull and the resulting change in leadership at both World Championships.
That momentum will only encourage Mercedes to strike back harder in Baku and beyond.
“We had 29 points on Red Bull and are now behind,” said Wolff. “So it’s not the prettiest picture and Lewis is four points behind too.
“But it is clear that it will go to the end and I hope these seven points make a difference. Let’s just learn, go on and conquer again.”
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