mercedes is back. The German team has been the great revelation of the Spanish Grand Prix. After a disappointing start to the season in which they have been very far from standing up to Red Bull and have even been surpassed by Aston Martinin Barcelona They have managed to reverse the trend and position themselves as the second team.
In it Monaco Grand Prixthe star team released a new concept car, amending the idea ‘zero pontoons‘ with whom they had worked since the beginning of 2022.
After the first race of the season, in Bahrain, Toto Wolff anticipated that there would be major changes to the car, slipping that they would return to traditional sidepods, following the line of Red Bull and Aston Martin.
However, no one expected that this would imply an exponential increase in the performance of the W14. In Monaco it did not help them to improve, although the singularities of Monte Carlo meant that it was not a representative sample.
But in Barcelona it has been shown that the leap forward is a reality. lewis hamilton and George Russell have climbed to the podium after beating on track Carlos Sainz and be much faster than Aston Martins. In addition, they have managed to keep at bay ‘Czech’ Perez without suffering in the final part of the race despite the fact that the Mexican arrived with a great pace after coming back from eleventh position.
In fact, with this double podium, Mercedes overtakes Aston Martin in the fight for second place in the Constructors’ World Championship. Now, focus on Red Bull to close the gap and face the energy drink team in the second half of the season.
Lewis Hamilton spoke about that fight with Red Bull after the race, being optimistic about the evolution of his team for the first time this season.
“What a result. We didn’t expect a race like this. We’ve gotten closer to Red Bull, they’re still ahead, but we’re closer. They are too fast but we can get closer to the end of the season“, Hamilton has declared to the official media of Formula 1.
George Russell has also been satisfied with the progress of the Brackley team in Spain. “A bit surprised today. We have come from P12 to the podium. The car feels much better now and compared to Ferrari and Aston Martin we have been faster lap by lap“Russell said.
