Mercedes Launches Investigation After Puzzling Performance Swings Ahead Of Italian GP

Chris Ladd | Aug 26, 2024

Jun 9, 2024; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton (GBR) races ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc (MCO) during the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Mandatory Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports / Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

Mercedes has been very dominant claiming victories in three of the last four races. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes some upgrades made to the cars led to a drop-off in performance at the Dutch Grand Prix.

George Russell finished in seventh place, just ahead of his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, who came in eighth. McLaren's Lando Norris delivered an outstanding performance, securing a dominant victory. Norris' win highlighted McLaren's strong pace, while Mercedes struggled to match the frontrunners, marking a challenging weekend for the team.

Wolff, acknowledged the unpredictable nature of their performance, describing their cars as a "surprise-box." Despite having secured six consecutive podium finishes, the recent results have not been as strong as expected. Wolff pointed out that just a few weeks ago, the team was in a position to achieve a first-place finish on merit, which contrasts sharply with their current form.

Wolff confirmed the need for a thorough analysis in the coming days as they prepare for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The team will be working hard to understand the factors that led to their recent performance drop and to ensure they can bounce back at one of the most iconic tracks on the Formula 1 calendar. Whilst speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race, Wolff explained:

"I think these cars are sometimes a surprise-box. We've had six [races with] podiums in a row and that doesn't look like the car three weeks ago that was first and second, at least first on merit.

"You can't really end up with a result like this without any major factor playing, and that's something we need to analyse in the next few days until Monza.

"Was it because we put something on the car that didn't help? Did we engineer something into the car that wasn't good?

"Then how do you justify these swings of performance? Sometimes we looked really good this weekend and then obviously today, in terms of degradation, that was not very impressive."

Mercedes faced additional challenges during the race weekend as much of the three practice sessions were disrupted by bad weather. This limited track time made it difficult for the team to gather crucial data and properly assess their car setups.

Wolff added that the restricted running hampered their ability to evaluate the different floors they tested on their two cars during Friday's sessions. The lack of data made it harder for Mercedes to make informed decisions about the best setup, contributing to their struggles in the race.

Asked if he thought the issue was specifically the floor, Wolff added:

"I don't want to jump to conclusions too quickly because we're going to look at it the coming days and hopefully trying to find clues in the data.

"Was it a setup? Was it the track? What is it that we got wrong? Was it the floor that we put on the car? Was it all of this together?

"So, hopefully we can sort it out until Monza and become competitive again. But the swing in performance from P1-P2 and P7-P8, there's a biggie in there. It's not something that was simply a setup decision in my opinion."