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Symonds: Mercedes have been too complacent

17:52, 25 Apr 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

Pat Symonds has questioned whether Mercedes have gotten too comfortable at the top of Formula One. With recent pressure from Ferrari and Red Bull, complacency has crept up on the world champions and it has cost them victories this season.

Mercedes looked to have the opening round in Australia wrapped up until an unfortunately-timed virtual safety car cost Lewis Hamilton the win. Since then, their pace has been sub-par and with their rivals making gains over the winter, Mercedes' apparent dominance over the sport seems to be coming to an end.

“If you look back at the recent history of Mercedes, one thing that they've never quite got on top of is tyre management,” he said. “We saw it a lot in the pre-hybrid era when they didn't have the engine advantage they enjoy now.

“If they didn't get their tyre quite right, they didn't have great races. I think things were masked from 2014 to 2016, simply because they had this big power advantage.

“Then, last year we started to hear the car being called a ‘diva'. What's that about? In my mind, the difference in performance you get from one weekend to the next is not really explainable in aerodynamics or vehicle dynamics or anything like that.

"With an aero/chassis package, getting your set up just right might mean you're hoping to pick up a tenth or so from Friday to Saturday qualifying. But when you get a big shift, when suddenly you're not competitive, it has to be down to tyres.

“Strategically, they've also had troubles. I won't call them wrong, but I would say some imperfect strategy calls. I think that's because there may have been imperfect calls before but with such a performance advantage you don't really see them.”