Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and the entire Mercedes team experienced a disastrous Brazilian Grand Prix. At the venue in 2022, they celebrated the only win of the last two seasons. This year, the German team looked like a midfield team. Even against Alpine, Hamilton was no match.
Karun Chandhok, analyst at Sky Sports, reviews what's happening inside the Mercedes team. "I think there's a lot of head scratching going on there," the former F1 driver told Sky about Mercedes' situation. "They need to understand as a collective group where the root of this problem is, because they've had the highs of the last couple of races where they were quick. Let's not forget they were excluded in Austin. But you can't produce a world championship campaign, to fight for the championship, if you've got these ups and downs with no clear understanding as to why."
Chandhok sees Mercedes losing their way
According to Chandhok, there was no prior expectation that Mercedes would struggle at Interlagos. "If you came to a track and went, we know we're going to struggle here. We know we're going to be weak here. We'll take it on the chin. That's fine. But that doesn't seem to be the case. They seem to have no clear understanding of why the highs are the highs and the lows are the lows. I think that is a worry going into next year."
Chandhok cites McLaren's situation. "McLaren started the year being nowhere, but were very vocal about the fact that they said at the start of the season, even at testing, we're going to struggle at the start of the year. But when they brought the upgrade in Austria, it's moved forward. And since then, they've been at the front at every type of track, every type of format, every type of weekend, track conditions, temperatures, wet, dry, they've all been there. That falls right for next year. Because that gives the aero department and the designers confidence that the path they're going down is working."
"For Mercedes, they're not having that. They had Qatar, they were reasonably quick. George had a good race. This weekend they were slower than the AlfaTauris, Alpines, way slower than McLaren Red Bull and Aston Martin. It's just confusing."
