'That did not reflect the superiority of Red Bull Racing'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Since the Monaco Grand Prix, the usually flawless Mercedes has lost its way a bit. On the street circuits of the Principality and later on Baku, they had a hard time getting temperature in the tyres. In their attempts to compensate for this big mistakes were made. Luckily for Mercedes Red Bull Racing didn't manage to take full advantage of this.
At least that is what motorsport journalist Michael Schmidt of Auto Motor und Sport. He has added up all the 'mistakes' made by both Mercedes and Red Bull in the races so far and comes to the conclusion that despite the blunders of the past few weeks Mercedes is still slightly ahead in the 'error classification'.
Fewest mistakes decisive for title race
Red Bull also didn't go through the weekend faultless and that wasn't necessary according to Schmidt. "Red Bull gets the 25 points, but they make it difficult for themselves. The third and sixth place on the starting grid did not reflect the superiority of their car. You always have to be mindful of red flags on a street circuit and therefore give everything in your first attempt in Q3."
The Milton Keynes-based team was not quite in top form during the race either. Perez narrowly missed out on second place to Lewis Hamilton due to a slow pit stop. "4.3 seconds is way above average, but maybe the team were okay with that. With a faster stop, the Mexican could have come back on track ahead of Verstappen," said Schmidt, who concludes that the fierce title battle logically results in more mistakes.