Traditionally, Mercedes has struggled compared to its rivals with its power♔ unit performance at higher-a🔜ltitude F1 circuits such as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. 

With the Mexican Grand Prix track situated 2.2km ab🐼ove sea level, greateﷺr strain is placed on all the key components of the cars, including the engine. 

At previous events in Mexico, Mercedes has seen its engine performance somewhat equali𓂃sed compared to its F1 rivals, with Honda’s power unit and turbo believed to be better optimised to running in the less dense air. 

But Valtteri Bottas headed a surprise 1-2 ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton in Q3 as they upstaged the Honda-powered Red Bull duo. It was a clear indication that Mercedes’ engine is working bette🔥r at high altitude than in previous years. 

Mercedes team p💃rincipal Toto Wolff confirmed tweaks made to its F1 power unit have helped cure some of its previous weakness.&nb𝄹sp;

“We have optimised it for these conditions,” Wolff explained aft💙er qualifying. 

“At the end, you’re trying to extract power u𓃲nit performance throughout the calendar. And the outliers are somehow diffi⛄cult to account for.

“But it’s more a tuning question, it’s not that we’ve put the engiꩵne upside down.

“It’s j🍃ust we better understand why it didn’🦋t perform at high altitude.”

And the benefit of the changes have alsꦐo been felt by Mercedes’ customer teams, McLaꦺren, Aston Martin and Williams. 

꧅“It is better at dealing ඣwith the altitude than it was in 2019, I think it’s fair to say,” Williams’ head of vehicle performance Dave Robson said.  

“Part of that is jಌust the natural evolution of it over the last two years. But yeah, they have made some changes to꧃ it that make it more suitable for running here.”

Mercedes hope the improvements will bode well for Hamilton and Bottas at the upcoming Sao Paolo🎃 Grand Prix at Interlagos in Brazil, another high altitude venue where Honda powered cars secured a 1-2 in 2019. 

Asked how important the changes could be considering the title run-in with Verstappen holding a 12-point advantage o༺ver Hamilton, Wolff said: “Yes, because there is not a lot of points lost that we can afford anymore. 

“Obvi🌟ously bouncing back like this is a big advantage,൩ and I hope we can carry that into into Sao Paulo as well.”

Merc𒅌edes ended qualifying with a 0.350s cushion over Verstappen’s Red Bull and Wolff admitted the result came as a shock to the team which had been bracing for a potential weekend of damage limitation. 

"We were all surprised,” Wolff added. “It was pretty obvious that Max 🅷would take polꦚe, and that it would be a fight between us and Checo for the other positions, and then we could see that qualifying really came towards us. 

“On the medium, we started really to outperform them, and at no poin♐t in Q3 did they have a lead on none of the lap🍌s. Also I believe that in the last lap, they were behind. 

“That makes the sport for me so fascinating, that from one session to theജ other, performance can ꧑swing, and we’ve seen it to our detriment in Austin, and now it has happened to our advantage here in Mexico.”