Mercedes is not expecting to find a quick fix for the tyre issues that saw Lewis Hamilton struggle at the Chinese Grand Prix, but is convinced it is not the only team struggling to understand Pirelli’s rubber this year.
The team’s performance fluctuated across all three days of the Chinese Grand Prix after both drivers struggled to get their tyres up to temperature in qualifying and then keep them from overheating in the race. Hamilton was affected more than teammate Valtteri Bottas and the team left China struggling to get to the bottom of the issue.
« In Formula One there is never a quick fix, but you can see how fast the picture can change, » Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said. « In testing and in Melbourne, people predicted that we would run away with the championship because the car was so dominant. Here we go, three races in, and we have not won so far…
« This is, in my opinion, a great group of people. We just need to stick our heads together, stay calm, get the head down and come up with some solutions. Huge confidence in the team, they’ve proved that in the past. »
Chief strategist James Vowles said the performance of the car has been largely dependent on the tyres but does not think the problems are limited to Mercedes.
« In Melbourne we were able to get the car working on the tyres and in Q3 we set a time that was extremely fast with Lewis, » he said. « If we go forward to Bahrain, the medium tyre worked well on our car and the super-soft degradation worked well as well. So there are little vignettes of information where we’ve been able to get it to work and again if we go to the Chinese Grand Prix, in Q2 we ran the soft tyre and we did a 1:31.9, which would have put us in contention for fifth on the grid on the soft tyre.
« So you get this evidence of the tyres working and conversely it’s the same for Ferrari. In Melbourne they weren’t quite there, and on the super-soft tyre in Bahrain they were just outside the range and degrading too much, and then on the medium tyre they were a little bit slower than us.
« It’s a window that all teams have to operate in and it looked like Ferrari, in the cold conditions and the very warm conditions were faster than us. There are several effects going on her; the tyres are very sensitive to temperature on the front and on the rear and you need all four tyres working roughly in the right temperature at every single corner of the track.
« In some corners, when they are tight and twisty, you generate a lot of temperature and other corners, like the back end of the straight at Turn 14, they cool right down. And you need a car that is able to work the tyres in a consistent manner. All teams are working their hardest to try and achieve that but, as you can imagine, it’s difficult to get it all coming together at once. »
Vowles predicts an « arms race » as the teams try and get on top of the issues over the coming races.
« Ferrari and Red Bull are fierce opponents, they are world champions, they are working day and night to try and beat us. We are doing the same, but it’s an arms race of who can develop the car the fastest and who can produce the fastest car. What we can’t ignore at this time is that in Shanghai Ferrari had a faster car than us. It is our duty and job to keep working tirelessly to get to Baku and try our best to fight back against them. »
http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/23244327/toto-wolff-no-quick-fix-mercedes-tyre-issues-china
