Mercedes just can't catch up to Ferrari and Red Bull in 'one go', says team's chief strategist

Mercedes' motorsport strategy director James Vowles has admitted that the team will not be able to catch up to Ferrari and Red Bull overnight ahead of the 2022 F1 Hungarian GP.

The Silver Arrows' came to Le Castellet (Circuit Paul Ricard) with upgrades to the W13. Among these were a revised nose and front wing as well as a modified curvature of the floor in front of the rear tires to provide better airflow to the diffuser.

Mercedes, however, struggled to keep up with Red Bull and Ferrari during Free Practice and Qualifying, falling over a second behind leading up to the race last Sunday.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were much quicker during the 53-lap race instead, perplexing many Mercedes fans.

In his post-race debrief after the 2022 F1 French GP, Vowles explained the offset between Mercedes' pace at the start and the end of the race weekend. The British engineer said:

“It’s a valid observation. It’s one that has been there all year. It’s not through necessarily design; we didn’t plan to be that offset in qualifying. The reality is, we’d much prefer to have the fast race car that we have at the moment. The race is spread over 50+ laps and having a car that is competitive on all those gives you an opportunity.”

Vowles added, saying:

“So, we’ve typically been able to move back forward in races into a strong position. That said, we’d obviously prefer to be a bit more competitive in qualifying. There’s going to be some tracks, like Budapest, that are going to cause us issues and we need to make sure that we are really there or thereabouts to make sure we don’t have a number of other teams between ourselves and Ferrari and Red Bull.”

Vowles then shed light on the upgrade schedule Mercedes plans to follow going forward for the remainder of the 2022 F1 season. The 43-year-said:

“In terms of the upgrades themselves, yes, they are incremental steps. They are small steps we are adding to the car, but the important point is that we have plans to introduce far, far more across the races that follow. We are not going to be able, in one go, to catch up and be with Ferrari and Red Bull. But hopefully, as you have seen across the season so far, we are incrementally closing that gap down and we have more to come.”

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Mercedes have really got on top of their car development, claims George Russell

Ahead of the 2022 F1 French GP, George Russell claimed that Mercedes has a clear direction concerning its car development and is trending towards it.

The Silver Arrows were slow off the blocks at the start of 2022 when compared to the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari and have been playing catch-up in 12 races thus far.

All the while, its team of engineers back in Brackley and Brixworth has been working non-stop to solve issues related to porpoising and ride height while trying to unlock the true potential of the W13 that George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are driving this year.

George Russell feels Mercedes can focus on extracting more performance from its package now that it doesn't have to experiment as much with its set up.

Speaking in an interview ahead of the 2022 F1 French GP, the 24-year-old said:

“I feel like, as a team, this is probably the first in the recent races that we’ve really got on top of the car and what we believe we need to do to bring more performance. Whereas if we look back at the first six races of the season, it was almost trial and error.”

Russell, who joined Mercedes to replace Valtteri Bottas at the start of 2022, went on to add, saying:

“We were still really understanding what the problems were and we didn’t have a clear direction. We didn’t really know, as a team, the direction we had to take, whereas now we feel pretty confident. We’ve at least got a channel to follow. Whether we can actually now translate that into performance is another factor. At least now we feel like we’ve got a clear direction.”

Heading into the 2022 F1 Hungarian GP, Mercedes are third in the World Constructors' Championship standings with 270 points.