Mercedes is pinning its hopes on an upgrade for its W15 after both drivers again finished outside the top five in the Chinese Grand Prix.
George Russell took sixth in the grand prix, three places ahead of team mate Lewis Hamilton, who laboured in the midfield all afternoon after qualifying a lowly 18th.
Team principal Toto Wolff admitted their performance was “not good enough.”
“I think considering where we put the cars altogether, drivers and team, was not a good position for today,” he told Sky. “Overall P6 I think it was, and [ninth], but lacking pace. So we’ve got to dig deep.”
Mercedes has made few changes to its car since the year began, introducing only a minor update at this weekend’s race. But Wolff said they will be “hopefully a bit quicker” at the next race where they will bring the first significant upgrade for the W15.
“We have something coming for Miami that looks like a good step,” he said. “Let’s see where that brings us out.”
After the first five races with the W15, which follows a different design philosophy to its two predecessors, Wolff said the team accepts it isn’t as competitive as it hoped it would be.
“No, it’s not an okay car,” he said. “I think we can see what the mistakes were that we put on the car.”
Mercedes made significant changes to Hamilton’s car following the sprint race, but he was unable to progress beyond Q1 in qualifying, leaving him on the back foot for the grand prix.
“I think we wanted to go a bit more aggressive to see is [there] something that is so different that we need to do on the car,” said Wolff. “You can see Lewis today, who took it on him also, that was maybe a step too far.”
“The race car was not fast,” Wolff added. “You could hear him saying the car doesn’t turn and this is what we’ve been seeing on the data. It just wasn’t the right thing to do.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2024 Chinese Grand Prix
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…