After finishing third and fourth in the Bahrain Grand Prix, Mercedes managed to equal its best result of the season in Canada, ninth round of 2021, with Lewis Hamilton on the third step of the podium and George Russell crossing the finish line in fourth place.
Thanks to the intervention of the safety car in the final, Hamilton managed to close with a gap of only 7 seconds from the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and from the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, but in Montreal we saw a much better performing W13 than the one in crisis in Baku.
The step seen in Canada could lead us to think that in view of the next rounds of Silverstone and Paul Ricard, Mercedes may finally return to undermine the two top teams, but Toto Wolff has preferred to preach caution.
“A swallow does not make spring. We saw that swallow in Barcelona, but then it flew elsewhere ”explained the Austrian manager who, right after the race in Spain, thought that the eight-time world champion team had finally found the key to a complex project.
“We have to be careful. In the wet we defended well and had a decent pace and in the race, on some occasions, we had the pace of the fastest cars. In the second stint both Lewis and George were almost on par with Max and Carlos, at least in some laps ”.
“This is encouraging, but we need to be careful. There is a lot of work to be done to get back to the top and we are not there yet ”.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG, 3rd position, with his trophy
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
In Canada Lewis Hamilton obtained the second podium of the season after the inaugural one in Bahrain, and at the end of the race the seven-time world champion returned to showing the smile of his best days.
“This result gave both me and the team a lot of hope. I think there is still a lot to extract from this car, the potential is there if we can find the correct set-up. I think this is the most difficult aspect of this season: trying to optimize the set-up ”.
“The correct operating window for this machine is very narrow,” concluded the seven-time world champion.
Analyzing the weekend in Montreal, Wolff then placed the emphasis on Lewis’ race. The Austrian manager stressed that in Canada there were no events that played against his driver.
“There have been many games where luck has played against him. He could have obtained a podium or a better result, but he didn’t arrive and not because of his mistake but only because of bad luck. Seeing him on the podium without anything having been given to him is really nice ”.
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