Mercedes: "Our car is very fast, but still too fragile"
General
- GPblog.com
The first race of the season was a true spectacle that was dominated by drop-outs, touches on the track, disappointments and euphoria. Lewis Hamilton didn't start the 2020 season too well, he got a grid penalty earlier and during the race he also got a penalty because of the situation with Alexander Albon. On top of that comes the Mercedes, which he says is not completely reliable.
Reliability
The Mercedes drivers were both able to finish their race, but on several occasions they were told by the onboard radio to stay away from the kerbs because of a critical situation in the gearbox. A point that still had to be worked on, because there was a risk of failure. Hamilton now states in the Mercedes review that reliability still had to be worked on.
" The car felt great, although reliability was a real issue for us today. But at least we finished, so we'll take those points. Obviously it's a loss from a potential 1-2, but I'll try to recover those in the coming races", said the six-time champion.
Serious problem
Team boss of Mercedes, Toto Wolff, says in the same review that the situation was really very serious: "As a team, we faced some real challenges with our gearbox in the race. The situation was pretty serious; we saw issues on Valtteri's car early on and a little later on Lewis' car as well. It was something that could end your race instantly."
"We know it's linked to the vibration of the car and that's why we asked the drivers to stay away from the kerbs. At one point it looked like none of the cars were going to make it to the finish, so we tried to drive home and take care of our cars really quietly."
Finally engineer Andrew Shovlin also shares his opinion and he echoed Wolff's words: "However, the bigger picture is that we have a car that is very fast but right now it's too fragile. We've not got long to fix the issues and given that the track won't change, it's a safe bet that they won't all go away."