Mercedes confusion grows: "We'll pick through the data"

Wider gap to Red Bull and Ferrari

For George Russell and Lewis Hamilton it was another disappointing weekend in Miami. The British drivers finished respectively fifth and sixth, but the distance to the top four was particularly large and that while it looked so positive on Friday. In Mercedes' press release it appears that the team itself also understands little of this.

''It's mixed feelings to be honest because obviously based on where we were yesterday, today was a good result but if you'd told me after Friday we'd finish P5 and P6 and that far behind P1, I'd have been pretty disappointed. We have a fast race car in there, we just don't have the key to unlock this performance. And we don't really understand why that is so there's work to do," Russell said after the race in Florida.

Misunderstanding at Mercedes

Toto Wolff gives a similar conclusion after the race. "We had a good Friday but didn't quite understand why that was. We will be looking at all the data we've generated this weekend, working through the sessions on Friday to better understand the strong performance, and take those learnings back to Europe." The team boss is supported in his statements by Andrew Shovlin.

"The car showed signs of promise on Friday on low and high fuel so it's disappointing to see that the gap to the front was no smaller today. However, there may be something to learn from that running so we'll pick through the data to see if we can see understand what may have changed," concluded Mercedes' trackside engineering director.