Mercedes sees Max Verstappen in his own league in Spielberg – Lewis Hamilton struggles with understeer and too little downforce
No sooner had Mercedes thought that they had worked their way back to the top than they got a reality check from Max Verstappen, who once again showed everyone else that Red Bull has no great desire to be outpaced. Even Mercedes are left with nothing but amazement
“Max is driving in a different hemisphere for once,” says Head of Motorsport Toto Wolff to Sky and believes that the Dutchman will also pull away from the field on Sunday in Spielberg: “He’s gone for once,” says the Austrian.
“We lose twelve km/h to Verstappen in the fast corners, then of course you can’t achieve anything,” he complains. “The gap to Max is enormous on a track that has a one-minute lap time.”
Mercedes themselves had to settle for fourth and sixth place in qualifying, but gained one position in each case because Oscar Piastri’s time was deleted. “Once again, you have to control your expectations,” commented Wolff on qualifying.
He says that George Russell lost a tenth because he “absolutely wanted to have Piastri as a slipstream” – but that was a mistake. “We certainly didn’t make full use of the potential. But that’s where the car is.”
And that’s half a second behind Red Bull – and on a track as short as Spielberg.
Lewis Hamilton was as much as six tenths of a second behind Verstappen and, according to Wolff, was “not happy with the car” because he had a lot of understeer. “But I think it’s basically just a downforce issue. We don’t have enough downforce here in the fast corners.”
Hamilton himself confirms this: “If I could just take a piece of downforce and stick it to the rear, then I would,” says the Briton. “But it doesn’t work like that.”
He says that Mercedes made changes to the car before qualifying. “The car was better and there were no major problems,” said the seven-time world champion. “But we were missing a lot on Max in the high-speed areas. It’s incredible how much faster they are there than we are. “
Compromises for other areas were not made: “No, we simply don’t have enough downforce.”
For Hamilton, however, this also means that the victory he had hoped for this year has once again receded a little further into the distance for Mercedes. “We just have to keep stepping on the gas,” he says.
In all likelihood, there will be no victory in Spielberg, but Hamilton at least hopes that the Silver Arrows will still make it onto the podium. “To do that, I have to get past the Ferrari as quickly as possible. “
