Mercedes trio disagree on US Grand Prix updates; add penalty/stewarding

The Mercedes trio reflect on the Formula One US Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton feeling the upgrades caused problems, while George Russell and Toto Wolff were split after they added penalties.

Things started well for Mercedes at the Formula 1 US Grand Prix on Friday and even looked good in the sprint race until a deterioration put them behind Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren. Qualifying turned into a disaster after Hamilton dropped out in the first quarter and Russell crashed out of sixth place in the third quarter.

He was then forced to start from the pit lane, reverting to the old specification from Singapore. On the other hand, Hamilton wanted to break the news to Russell because he didn’t feel confident enough. And he ended up crashing out in the early stages of the US Formula 1 Grand Prix – a very rare event for a Briton.

He mused about bouncing due to the updates, but Russell and even Wolf downplayed the idea that the updates were causing problems with the car. The head of Mercedes noted that Hamilton was not to blame for the turn, while complaining about the inconsistencies.

It remains to be seen whether Hamilton will use the upgrades in Mexico or pass them on to Russell after he damaged his, which needs to be repaired at the factory and will only be available in Brazil. However, he completed the Grand Prix strongly, finishing sixth after starting from the pit lane.

The reinstatement included a time penalty, which brought back the debate around the stewards and the inconsistencies associated with them. Wolff believes that the FIA ​​president will have to kick out the inconsistent stewards who always cause problems.

Race –

Russell: “Yeah, it’s really hard, I mean you feel as a driver that you’re letting the whole team down, your actions have such an impact on certain people, but there’s never any hard feelings. We’re all working hard as a team to improve this car and achieve great results, and when we’re in that window we’ve been there, when we’re not it bites. And it happened in qualifying, you saw it with Lewis in the race, he never makes a mistake, the car just gets away from us. I didn’t have much to expect from the race but obviously the pace was really good, I’m still confident that the updates worked as expected and I think we could have been in contention for the podium if we had started well. position. I think I just damaged my tires in the sprint race, but obviously we had the pace in the early laps of the sprint and we showed glimpses of some really strong pace this weekend, so let’s see what we can do in the next races. »

Updates causing the problem –

Hamilton: “Yes, I had a great start. I felt good and moved up to 12th place. It was my best first turn start in a long time. It was only the second lap, I wasn’t even in a hurry. I was literally just trying to get the tires up to temperature. The car began to bounce. The left front began to bounce and the rear just turned around. Same as George. In FP1 I had a spin in turn three, which is very rare. I’ve never spun in Turn 3 in all the years I’ve been here and I’ve never spun in Turn 19 before. Definitely frustrating, but I know it wasn’t that I wasn’t focused or anything, it was just unfortunate. I just said that George apparently had the same problem and he went back to the old car and it looks good there, so maybe there’s something with our new upgrade.”

Russell: “No, I don’t think so… I managed to change the environment a little at the beginning of the closed park, it had nothing to do with the updates. I think it’s quite difficult to understand.”

Wolf: “I don’t think we have a fundamental problem with updating. I think there’s more emphasis on aerodynamics and mechanics here, and so I mean we’re going to continue to upgrade. There’s no point in not doing it because you have a lot of time, but on the other hand, you need to be very open-minded. I mean, George ran the July upgrade today because we didn’t have room and it seemed pretty competitive in the race. That being said, if you’re missing a few tenths in qualifying, it makes a big difference because it’s not as good as it should be. So it’s more than just understanding why we have the car that on Friday (Hamilton) was the fastest before the Colapinto situation.

“He was four-tenths up and there were just problems in the last sector but he would have been fastest and then on Saturday it all changed. During the sprint race our suspension broke. This is one explanation. We corrected the fact that nothing else was going well in qualifying and started to pick up the pace. There was an incident in this corner today that came out of nowhere. He didn’t press at all. So where I am now is 100 percent not Lewis’s fault, and it doesn’t mean I’m defending him. Clear. There was a gusty wind and a headwind. How does all this interact? How did Ferrari, which was written off before the summer, manage to turn the tide and have the most dominant car finishing 1-2? Hats off to Fred’s team, what they do is truly impressive.”

Data collection, scene in Mexico –

Wolf: “No, we don’t do that. I think this is a data driven sport and there will be a lot of thinking about why were we fastest on Friday night and why didn’t we qualify the next day? What were the circumstances of this, what did the data say? And after today’s performance there was a lot of data collected, so I’m not worried about it, it’s just that we are where we are, we are again underdog status. We’re not back to the pre-summer situation, we’re not going into the weekend thinking we’re going to win this game, but rather going into the weekend thinking we’re the fourth team away at the moment.

“How can we turn this into third or second place and manage our expectations for the rest of the year, seeing as it’s a bit of a test as we head into the weekend and try our best. I am 100% confident that we will progress in the same way as before the summer, with a stable platform, we will come to these conclusions. Obviously we will be missing the floor, which will need to be returned to the UK and then refurbished for Brazil. So we’ll use a fallback specification. As for Lewis, normally he would have all the roles, but I’m not 100% sure he’s interested in that. So we’re going to figure out how we want to spend this weekend.”

Penalties, stewards –

Russell: “I think the stewards have a very difficult job because the rules are very strict. When you watch an incident in slow motion or pause it at a given moment… my penalty with Valtteri, the rules state that if you don’t get ahead of the apex and push someone past the goal, you get a penalty. So, according to the letter of the law, my punishment was fair. But anyone who understands racing, and anyone who watches it, knows that this is wrong. I really don’t know how we should move forward. I think we’d all like to see the same stewards throughout the year so riders and stewards can be on the same page. We can use common sense when necessary instead of actually following the letter of the law.”

Wolf: “I think the stewards are in a really difficult situation. There will always be one happy and another unhappy. But we need to try to understand whether there are certain patterns in the decisions of stewards and whether they correlate with certain situations. Everyone is trying their best, but for me the decision against George was inexplicable. We’ve seen a lot of situations like this in Turn 12. None of them were fined until George, and then apparently there was another one. But this had not happened all weekend until now.

“And I don’t want to comment on the situation between Max and Lando, because they are not my race. I think Zach and Andrea will look at this. And everyone is trying their best. I need to hold back here. I think there are great stewards, really great stewards who have either been in a race car or have an open mind about situations, doing their best to do a really difficult job. We shouldn’t put everyone in the same category. There are a few inconsistencies, but I’m sure the president will look into it.”

Here’s Lewis Hamilton’s spin: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2024-united-states-grand-prix-hamilton-spins-out-on-lap-3-to-trigger-safety-car. 1813463038133479696

Here’s how the Formula 1 US Grand Prix went

Here’s how the Formula 1 US Grand Prix sprint went

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