The retirements of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the Red Bull final allowed Mercedes to get an unexpected podium with Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain. George Russell finished in fourth position and the final gap of the W13s with respect to the Ferraris was ‘acceptable’ only due to the entry of the Safety Car in the final race, with the GT ‘Black Series’ driven by Bernd Maylander who was the only Mercedes to lead the group last Sunday in Sakhir.
The W13, in fact, is currently not competitive compared to the Ferrari F1-75 and the Red Bull RB18. On the single lap the gap is about half a second, widening to 8 tenths per lap on Sunday’s race pace. The problem with the car built in Brackley is the hopping on the straight, the porpoising, which forces the engineers to adopt a higher and more rigid set-up to counteract this phenomenon. Toto Wolffteam principal of the team back from 8 consecutive world titles in the Constructors’ standings, since his first interviews in Bahrain has made no secret of the problems currently affecting the Mercedes garage, problems for which a first package of ‘care’ is foreseen not before Imola.
“We have taken a step forward in terms of performance compared to the pre-season tests, but we were clearly the third force behind Ferrari and Red Bull – Wolff’s words – we know that the W13 has potential and we must continue to learn to find out how to unlock it and in the meantime maximize the opportunities that arise in terms of points. Red Bull were unlucky at Sakhir, but reliability in Bahrain has always been a crucial factor. In Jeddah it will be a great challenge, because it is a very special track that we are preparing to tackle with cars that are radically opposed to a few months ago. I expect a pretty steep learning curve during free practice and we can’t wait to get down on the track ”.
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