The Mercedes driver, Lewis Hamilton, was feeling optimistic before the Suzuka race. The team had shown some good signs during practice with a new setup for the W15 car.
However, right from the restart of the red-flagged race, Hamilton faced trouble. He had a small collision with Charles Leclerc in the first few corners, which damaged his car. This damage caused his car to have a lot of understeer, making it difficult to turn. So, when his teammate George Russell caught up with him, Hamilton let him pass because Russell seemed faster.
Hamilton talked to F1 about how the car didn’t perform as expected in the race. He said, “I mean, the car is never what I would [have] hoped it would be. It’s never what we’d hoped it would be.”
Hamilton felt encouraged by the improvements in the W15 car but wasn’t feeling too positive about the race in Japan. He said, “I don’t know if you can take many positives from the weekend.”
Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, explained that the team’s poor performance in qualifying set them back for the race. They couldn’t challenge for a podium position because of this. He said, “We weren’t quick enough in qualifying so we’re starting too far back to challenge for the podium.”
They tried a different strategy during the race by switching to hard tires, but it didn’t work out well. They struggled with grip and lost time. Although the later parts of the race showed some improvement, they had already lost too much time by then.
Shovlin acknowledged that the team needs to work harder to improve their speed. Despite the disappointing result, they learned more about their car and how to develop it further.
Also read: Mercedes Shows Promise at Suzuka with Optimism from Hamilton and Russell Amidst Progress
