At the start of the summer break, Mercedes’ run of six podiums in a row has been snapped – why Hamilton and Russell are still confident for Monza
At Spa, Mercedes blew away the competition before the summer break. With similar track characteristics, does this automatically make the Silver Arrows the secret favorites for the high-speed track at Monza?
“I’m definitely more hopeful ahead of this weekend that the car will be better to drive again,” explains Lewis Hamilton, “but of course others are bringing upgrades this weekend. So you have to expect Ferrari to be quick here with their upgrade. And McLaren too, with the advantage they had on the last lap (at Zandvoort), which they were able to get out of the last race. They will be fast again.”
With regard to Mercedes, Hamilton says: “I just hope that we are on the pace, or at least can keep up.” However, the record world champion explains that it was “no shock” that this was not the case in Zandvoort after the strong results beforehand: “We simply had difficulties getting the balance into the perfect window. ”
Hamilton: “Pace wasn’t terrible now ”
As a result, Mercedes’ new underbody in particular has become the focus of the engineers – and Hamilton also admits, looking back on Zandvoort: “In hindsight, we probably would have done a few things differently. But in terms of pure pace, I think we were third fastest in the race. Our race pace wasn’t terrible and the results don’t show the real performance in the race.”
Team-mate George Russell echoes Hamilton’s sentiments ahead of Monza: “We certainly underperformed at Zandvoort and we have a number of ideas as to why that was. I think it was a very challenging weekend, with strong winds, very old asphalt, a lot of sliding, and McLaren was also simply outstanding,” says the Briton, assessing the performance.
But he also makes it clear: “We expect this weekend to be a bit better, with the lessons learned from Zandvoort. It was probably one of the changes we made to the car that we knew wasn’t quite going in the direction we wanted – but it wasn’t so obvious at that moment on the race weekend. “
Russell on the underbody: “I’m confident ”
Russell admits: “It was only afterwards that we realized in the analysis that this was an area where we had lost out and that we had to avoid it with a view to the future.” However, the Briton does not want to focus on the upgrade: “I think this weekend will be another good test for it.” Russell is not yet convinced that the upgrades were the reason for the weaker performance.
“If you have a bad weekend that coincides with an upgrade, people are quick to say that must be the reason,” said the Mercedes driver: ”I’m confident that the underbody is working as expected, and I don’t think our problems at Zandvoort were due to the upgrade. But now we have a new opportunity this weekend, and maybe we’ll draw some conclusions after Monza.”
In the end, says Russell, the answer is obvious anyway: “Ultimately, you have to trust the numbers – otherwise you’re entering a world of pain.” Whatever the figures reveal for Mercedes after their performance in Italy
