Mercedes ‘worry’ for F1 2024 laid bare after mysterious shocker at Sao Paulo Grand Prix
Mercedes endured their worst performance of a difficult 2023 season at Interlagos as 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Lewis Hamilton tumbled to eighth, and teammate 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:George Russell retired when running in 11th.
Following positive gains in the United States and Mexico City, Mercedes’ sudden drop-off in Brazil left the team baffled, and led to a brutally honest assessment fr𒉰om Toto Wolff, who described his side’s performance as “inexcusable” and “miserable”.
Analysing Mercedes’ torrid weekend after Sunday’s race, Chandhok told Sky: “I𒅌 think Hamilton was only about 10 seconds away from being lapped. I think there is a lot of head-scr🃏atching going on there.
“They need to understand as a collective group where the root of t🧜he problem is. They’ve had the highs of the past couple of races where they were quick - but let’s no❀t forget that they got excluded in Austin.
“You can’t fight for th♑e championship if you’ve got these ups and downs, with no clear understanding as to why. If [they said] ‘we know we are going to struggle here, we know we are going to be weak here, we will take it on the chin’, then that’s fine. But that doesn’t seem to be the casꦍe.
“They seem to have no clear understanding of why the highs are the highs, and the lows are the lows. That is the worry going in🧸to next year.”
Contrasting Mercedes’ fortunes with a rejuvenated McLaren, Chandhok said: “McLaren started the year nowhere but were very vocal - they said, even in testing,💯 ‘ꦫwe are going to struggle at the start of the year’.
“Since [the Austria upgrade], they have been at the front in every type of track, every type of corner, every type of weekend. Wet, dry, they’ve been there. That gives the aero department confidence💯 that the car is working.
“But Mercedes don’t have that. This𓄧 week they were slower than the AlphaTauris, A🌱lpines, way slower than McLaren and Red Bull and Aston Martin. It’s just confusing.”
When it was suggested that a sole hour of practice due to the sprint format may have hurt Mercedes, fellow Sky pundit Naomi Schiff said: “I think for them if that’s the case, that will be a bit of a relief, rather than a mor🌜e fundamental issue.
“But I guess at this point in the season when there’s only tw𒉰o races l𝔍eft for a World Championship-winning team, for a multiple championship-winning team, to struggle with a car for two seasons and be at this point so close to next season you’ve got to wonder are they going to stick to the same concept and keep building on it?
“Or are they really going to g💛o back to th🌠e drawing board now?”
Schiff added: “It’s been a couple of times this season when we’ve heard Toto really down. Today, that felt like an extreme low, from the sound of his vo🍨ice.
“I disagree slightly - last year felt like a rollercoaster, it really did feel like fr🐷om one weekend to another they didn’t understand which direction the car was going, when they brought upgrades.
“This year, it may have started that way. But it seemed like they have been building consistency. To take a step this far back in a matte💧r of onꦛe weekend? I guess it leaves them puzzled again.”
Lewis regul💞arly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reportingꦇ on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
