Mercedes still needs “a lot of laptime” to fight for F1 wins

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell helped Mercedes to its finest results of the season as far as they completed second and third behind championship chief Max Verstappen within the French Grand Prix.

However though Hamilton got here house simply 10 seconds adrift of the successful Pink Bull after the 53-lap race, Mercedes mentioned it remained lifelike about simply how large the deficit was to the entrance.

With Verstappen having been managing his tyres and never beneath a lot stress from behind, Mercedes thinks that France didn’t provide a correct image of how far off it’s.

Requested by Motorsport.com if he felt the truth remained that Mercedes was round 0.4-0.5 seconds behind the highest squads, staff principal Toto Wolff mentioned: “I believe he [Hamilton] was in a position to stabilise the hole at 5 – 6 seconds within the first stint, however it’s good to be trustworthy and say once they had been racing one another within the second stint, in all probability Max was simply retaining it on the observe.

“So in my half empty glass perspective, there’s nonetheless loads of laptime to catch up.”

Mercedes had a complicated weekend in France as, on a weekend which it had headed to hoping to struggle for the win, it was left additional off the entrance than it had been at current races.

Toto Wolff, Staff Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG

Picture by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Wolff reckoned that key now was the staff attending to the underside of why its French efficiency didn’t match expectations.

“I believe with each lap, we accumulate extra information and perceive a little bit bit, so we’re placing the little items of the puzzle collectively,” he mentioned. “It is a course of that is generally troublesome.”

What he was clear about, nonetheless, is that France confirmed that the Mercedes W13 is just not good on single lap qualifying tempo and it stays troublesome when it comes to tyre warm-up.

“It is merely not one factor: we’re missing efficiency on a single lap and we’re missing efficiency on the preliminary phases of the stint,” he mentioned.

“There’s something to know and it is not a silver bullet however it’s just a few matters that they roll in to our efficiency. Second and third is an effective consequence however we work tirelessly to win and there’s nonetheless a niche.”