The German car company faced more difficulties during the race in China. Despite Lewis Hamilton’s second-place finish in the sprint race, he only managed ninth place in the main race. His teammate, Russell, finished sixth. The team is trying to understand why they can’t get the most out of their W15 car.
They made big changes to the car’s setup after the sprint race on Saturday, but it didn’t make much difference. Team boss Toto Wolff thinks the car is hard to set up and drive, which leads to inconsistent performance.
Wolff said, “The car is not at its best right now, and it’s tricky to drive. We’re trying different things to improve it. We’ll bring new parts for the car in Miami and see how they work.”
Russell believes that even with different setups, the lap times and performance were similar. He thinks Mercedes should focus more on adding downforce to the car rather than finding the perfect setup.
“We’ve tried different setups, but they didn’t make a big difference,” Russell said. “In F1, more downforce means faster speeds. We need to focus on adding downforce to the car. That’s the most important thing.”
He thinks Mercedes has tried many different approaches in the past two years, but they need to simplify and focus on adding downforce. He believes that adding more downforce will improve the car’s performance.
Russell said, “We’ve tried different ideas, but we need to focus on adding downforce. No matter what approach we take, more downforce is better. Let’s see how the upgrades perform in Miami. Hopefully, they will help us improve.”
