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Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had a rather torrid time at the Saudi Arabian GP. The race saw the Briton getting eliminated in Q1 and then finishing 10th in the race. First of all, if we are honest, then Hamilton had every opportunity to finish 6th after the start but the delay in pitting for Medium tires worked against the British driver.
Looking at the entire weekend, however, we could say one obvious thing. For now, Mercedes are not battling Red Bull and Ferrari at the front. That is just not the battle it is part of. It is battling the likes of Haas, Alfa Romeo, Alpine, and AlphaTauri. Sure, the team has the third fastest car on the grid right now, but the gap behind it is much smaller than the gap in front.
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By the team and the driver's standards, the first two races have been mediocre at best. The car, in all honesty, is not even in podium contention. And, after reflecting on the first two races, it does appear that the days of mediocrity for both Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton might be here to stay for a while.
Mercedes' 'no-sidepod' design might not be the right approach
After two races and watching different concepts perform on the track, it does appear that maybe we need to address the elephant in the room. The Mercedes 'no-sidepod' design that was introduced during the pre-season test in Bahrain might not be the best solution for the new regulations.
More often than not, when you have a novel idea introduced by a team on the grid, if that idea is good then it gets replicated by the other challengers or gets questioned in terms of legality. If that idea does not hold potential, however, no one bats an eye. When the radical new design made its debut during the pre-season test, sure it caught attention, but it did not cause panic or even complaints up and down the grid.
Teams like Ferrari and Haas were quite open in admitting that this was one of the earliest designs that were discussed but discarded because they felt the other conventional design looked more promising.
Ever since the team introduced the radical design, the car has just not looked the part. The drag is obvious, and so is the porpoising effect. The team is around half a second slower than the front runners in qualifying and around 7-8 tenths slower in the race. This is not the kind of gap you make up by turning the key or finding a silver bullet. Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton might do better at some of the slower speed circuits on the calendar, but overall, the days of pain might be here to stay for a while.
The cost-cap and reduced wind tunnel time is going to be a limiting factor
The new regulations have changed the way teams approach the sport now. Gone are the days when teams blew the lid off their budgets and tried everything possible to improve their machinery. That is just not the case now as the new era of cost caps means that teams need to be more efficient and cannot afford to make mistakes.
Mercedes, unfortunately, appear to have made a misstep and will need to make improvements with what they have in terms of the cost cap. To add to this, the German team was the constructors' champion last season, so it faced a reduced wind tunnel time during the first half of the season as compared to the rest of the grid. With such limiting factors in place, they are already giving up ground to both Ferrari and Red Bull, and additionally, they are already more than half a second down in terms of performance.
Sure, Mercedes might just need to learn more about the car and the learnings will help close the gap to the front, which surely could be the case. It still needs wind tunnel time, however, to find out whether the solutions it wants to implement on its car are going to yield the desired output.
If the team had made a mess of it in any other era in F1, it might have had a simpler and more optimistic route back to the front of the grid. Right now, looking at the way the rules have been written and how things have become a bit more restricted, Lewis Hamilton might not be back in contention for wins for some time now.
Lewis Hamilton's races show the strategy unit needs to get its act together
The two races in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had the spotlight entirely on the chassis department of Mercedes. The car was just not good enough to fight at the front and it was nothing more than a bit of fortune that helped Lewis Hamilton bag a podium in Bahrain.
In all of this, however, there is one thing that got swept under the rug. Hamilton and his teammate were innocuously put on hard tires for their second stint in the Bahrain GP. In any other close competition, that could have proved detrimental. Since the team was in a no-man's land in Bahrain, it did not have much of an impact.
The bigger goof-up was the setup error for Hamilton in Saudi Arabia. The seven-time world champion qualified in 17th for the race, the first time he had done that on pure pace since 2009. The weekend of goof-ups, however, didn't end there as the team missed the opportunity to pit him for the medium tire during the VSC period. A P10 result that Hamilton achieved in the race could have easily been 6th if the team was on its toes.
After winning the title last season, it does appear that Mercedes are in a bit of disarray at the moment. The car is not up to the mark and the strategy team does not match the lofty standards it always used to have. The only positive is the drivers' combination of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, who are wringing the neck of their cars and scoring whatever they can.
While it might just be plain stupid to count out a team like Mercedes that has won the constructors title for the last eight seasons after just two races, looking at the state the team finds itself in, it might be safe to say that the combination of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton's days of mediocrity might not be close to ending anytime soon.
Also Check Out: F1 Standings 2022
