After a very difficult Friday, Mercedes managed to bring home a fourth and sixth position in Singapore, a positive result overall considering what has been seen in recent weekends. Furthermore, Ferrari’s problems on Saturday allowed them to gain a few places on the grid, but keeping both Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc behind them would not have been easy.
In fact, Mercedes was coming off two very difficult free practice sessions, in which it suffered from a lot of understeer and a lack of traction. The setup changes helped to have a more effective car on the flying lap, but over the long distance great unknowns remained. The attempt to diversify the strategy with Lewis Hamilton, although it was a gamble with its own logical foundation, did not work and condemned the Englishman to a defensive race.
On the contrary, with a more linear race tactic, George Russell managed to keep both Ferrari drivers behind him, even if he could do little against Piastri, who could count on a much faster and more consistent car. However, Russell’s defense against Leclerc at the end of the race gives the opportunity to address an interesting topic, namely that of the sensitivity of the W15, especially on tracks with hot asphalt or where there are many traction areas.
George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images
“First of all, I think we have to give credit to George for managing the tires for the final part of the race, but also to HPP [la divisione PU della Mercedes] who gave him all the correct directions to the Power Unit for those final laps. Furthermore, Leclerc had used the tires a lot to try to close the gap to George,” explained James Allison on Russell’s defense in the final laps of the GP at Marina Bay.
If it is true that the Englishman managed to make traction a strong point in his resistance to the Ferrari driver, it is also true that, taking the entire weekend as a whole, including qualifying, the feeling has always been that of a W15 at its limits in driving and with a narrow window. An aspect already addressed on other occasions on Motorsport.com, but this situation of often being at the limit has an important specific weight, also linked to that of temperature management.
As was already observed at the beginning of the season, in those Grands Prix where temperatures are very high, the W15 tends to show a few more limits. The only “hot” races in which it managed to manage the situation were those of the triptych in the middle of the season and in Hungary, even if it is true that Ferrari in that period was struggling with bouncing problems which had a big impact on performance. The topic is not new, but it is a problem that Mercedes has been pursuing for a long time now: even though some of the latest events will be at night, there will still be hot races or where the temperature of the rear end will need to be kept under control.
It is no coincidence that this excessive sensitivity to changes in temperature and asphalt conditions is precisely one of those issues that Mercedes will work on during the break before arriving in Austin, where the latest technical package for the W15 will also debut.
George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
“During the break we will try to understand how to mitigate what slowed us down last weekend, try to understand how to make the tires work better on these circuits where we tend to overheat the tyres,” explained James Allison during the classic analysis video of the weekend.
Many teams will present themselves in the United States with new features for their respective single-seaters, but within the Brackley team the hope is that this package can help take an effective step forward, especially bearing in mind that the fund brought to Spa does not gave the desired results, leaving Mercedes behind its rivals.
In general, the Star has high hopes for the Austin stage, not only for historical reasons, given that in recent years it has often been competitive on that track. It is no coincidence that the engineers chose to have Hamilton in Azerbaijan serve the penalty for the Power Unit, even if it is not easy to overtake in Baku: the idea was precisely to serve the penalty in advance, in order to reach Austin with a relatively fresh engine.
“We will also be doing a lot of work behind the scenes to bring our latest package of updates, we have substantial news for the new car coming to Austin, such as a new look, and hopefully it can give us a good weekend there. So, on the one hand, we have to work to produce the package, but we will also use the week off to prepare for these last races of the year,” added the Mercedes technical director.
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