Mercedes’ 2024 campaign got off to a frustrating start in Bahrain as problems beset both cars.
Toto Wolff thinks that during the Bahrain Grand Prix, which opened the season, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton lost half a second per lap due to the Mercedes power unit. Despite having great expectations going into the Sakhir International Circuit, the Silver Arrows only managed P5 and P7 finishes, respectively.
After passing Charles Leclerc and moving up to the second position on the grid, Russell looked like he would lead Mercedes to victory in the early going of the Grand Prix. However, Russell eventually lost ground to Sergio Perez and both Ferrari cars as a result of engine cooling problems encountered during traffic.
Additionally, there were problems for Russell’s colleague. After passing Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri, Hamilton was only able to move up from a disappointing ninth position on the starting grid to seventh, and he had to deal with a broken seat for more than half the race.
Team principal Wolff provided an explanation for Russell’s decline, pointing to issues with the power unit. He clarified, saying that if you turn off the power unit’s performance for 0.3–4 seconds going forward, you will need to lift and coast.
Therefore, I believe that occasionally, we were only able to extract five or six tenths of a second from the car’s battery. As a result, it wasn’t very enjoyable. We were occasionally literally several degrees over our assumed temperature—by as much as ten degrees.”
The fact that the problem was unexpected given the Silver Arrows’ preseason performance may have given them more cause for concern. The eight-time champions had numerous problems on race day, but they appeared to be almost impervious to problems during the Bahrain test and free practice.
“Testing was pretty good,” Wolff continued. The performances on Friday and Thursday were also positive. The car was good; it was stable. It is liked by the drivers. Everything went almost exactly as planned when we began the race on the soft tire.
Sadly, we then had to start cooling the engine earlier than we had anticipated. We are still unable to determine the source of that. Williams, one of our customer teams, experienced the same problem. Not so the other two. That was not what I expected.”
With the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix less than a week away, the Mercedes team will have a comparatively short turnaround to resolve the issue. F1 cars will take to the track on a Saturday for the second weekend in a row when we make our fourth visit to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
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