Mercedes' surge in form explained by veteran F1 journalist

F1 journalist Mark Hughes mentioned that there were some contributing factors to Mercedes F1's improved performance at the F1 Australian GP in Melbourne at the Albert Park Circuit on Sunday (April 2).

After qualifying second and third, the German team made an excellent gateway from the start and were one and two at the end of lap 1, with George Russell leading Lewis Hamilton. They finally finished in P2 with Hamilton following Russell's retirement due to engine failure.

While appearing on The Race podcast, Hughes said:

"Three things: one is that they have now honed in on the happy place that they like to be in terms of setup. which leads us to the second point. The happy place that they like to be is run as low as possible, obviously, there are only a few tracks that allow you to do that and this is one of them."

"This [Australia] is nice and smooth so yeah, anything smooth is gonna help. Thirdly, Ferrari completely messed up their qualifying and it could probably have qualified third and that would have split the Mercs. I don't think that they would have been able to match Russell's time but they could have beaten Hamilton's time."

"I definitely didn’t expect to be second so I’m super grateful for it” - Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton mentioned that he was delighted with his P2 finish and did not expect that result.

Speaking to F1.com after Sunday's race, he said:

“[It was] really unlucky for George. From our side, we’ve got to look into it, our reliability has generally been very good. Otherwise, to get those points is really amazing today. I definitely didn’t expect to be second so I’m super grateful for it. I still feel uncomfortable in the car, though, the car is still not… I don’t feel connected to it, so I’m driving as best I can with that disconnect."

“I’m working as hard as I can to try and create that connect but I think it’s a long project, but still, we’ve been down on performance, we are clearly down in straight [line] pace compared to the Red Bulls. For us to be up here fighting with Aston, it’s just amazing at this point in the season, and we’ve just [got] to keep on fighting.

It will be interesting to see if Mercedes can maintain their upturn in performance into the next few races and leapfrog their rivals into second place in the championship race.