Lewis Hamilton and George Russell helped Mercedes to their best result so far in the 2022 season, finishing second and third behind the mighty Max Verstappen at the Formula 1 French Grand Prix.
Although the seven-time champion fell within 10 seconds of the Dutchman after 53 laps, the German team said it remained realistic about the huge gap to the leaders.
With the Red Bull man managing their tires and not much pressure behind, Mercedes believes the race at Paul Ricard did not give an adequate picture of how far away they were. Asked by Motorsport.com if he thought the reality was still a deficit of four or five tenths, the German team’s chief executive officer, Toto Wolff , responded.
“I think he [Hamilton] was able to level the gap to five or six seconds in the first stint, but you have to be honest and say when they were racing each other in the second, Max [Verstappen] was probably holding.
“From my glass-half-empty perspective, there’s still plenty of time to make up the lap time,” explained the Mercedes boss, who had a confusing weekend in France.
The reason is that they arrived with the hope of fighting for victory, but they were even further away than what was seen in the last rounds of the course.
Toto Wolff considered that the key now is for the team to get to the bottom of why its performance in France did not live up to expectations : “I think with every lap we collect more data and understand a little bit, so we are putting together the little pieces of the puzzle.
“It’s progress that is sometimes difficult,” said the director of the Silver Arrows, who were clear that at the French event they showed that their W13 is not good at one lap in qualifying and that they suffer from the heating of the tires .
“It’s not just one thing, we lack performance in a turn and in the early stages of stints,” he said. “There’s something to understand, and it’s not a silver arrow, but it’s a few things that add to our performance.”
“Second and third place is a good result, but we worked tirelessly to win, and there is still some distance,” Wolff concluded.
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