VIDEO | Are Mercedes F1 FINALLY back?

Mercedes looked somewhat like their normal selves last weekend. After 16 months of being terribly mediocre and in no mans land when it comes to the Constructors’ Championship Mercedes seemed to be the second fastest team all weekend at Albert Park. But what evidence do we have to suggest that they may be making more progress than they are actually letting on? 

Hamilton surprised or relieved?

So Mercedes looked much better in Australia despite very much playing down their chances of a good result. However, was this actually expected? Lewis Hamilton seemed somewhat relieved and surprised when he was praising his team after the race. He said: “Mega job guys, what an AMAZING result. Thank you so much.” This wasn’t the radio message of the race winner, nor the championship leader, rather Hamilton finished second up one place from third in qualifying.

Had George Russell not received such bad luck, Mercedes might have been celebrating a double podium, which would have been an even bigger surprise. Now we’ve heard messages like that from Hamilton in the past but it was more the tone of his voice and the audible relief he let out. It seemed like he could see progress and Mercedes were making strides.

It wasn’t just Hamilton who seemed to acknowledge the progress. In their post race interviews, both Sainz and Alonso were not surprised at all by the performance of Mercedes. So was it almost expected? 

Still chasing Red Bull - Top speeds right up there

We’ll never know for sure but all weekend in Australia there were shoots of life. During FP1 for the Australian Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton had the second fastest combined best sectors, behind only Max Verstappen. In sector one he was third fastest, sector two he was second fastest and in three he was even quicker than Max, just behind Perez. So signs of hope early on and there was more on Friday when Mercedes put out the third fastest top speed, behind Red Bull and Alpha Tauri which we don’t read into too much. Whilst Red Bull were miles clear recording a top speed of 326 kmh Mercedes were the best of the rest excluding Alpha Tauri with 319 kmh. However, expectations were always steady as Mercedes were never really near the top of the timesheets barring Hamilton’s P2 in FP1.

When things got serious on Saturday their duo delivered, Verstappen is so far clear, but Russell and Hamilton both pushed him probably as much as their equipment could to qualify second and third. And then in the race they gave a good fist of it too and after three corners were actually first and second. Realistically Max Verstappen in the Red Bull was going to come back but they could have pushed him even more had Russell not had such bad luck. Mercedes would have been able to attack Verstappen two to one, potentially splitting the strategies, or just made life as difficult as possible with two cars able to defend. 

So are Mercedes back?

So all in all I don’t think Mercedes could’ve asked for a better weekend, they seemed to have found some pace, and going into Baku many will tip them to lead the chasing pack. However, expectations must be tempered given the fact that this is just one race, perhaps their car just works in Melbourne and it won’t work in Baku, will find out in a few weeks.

This was a script written by Joe Tyrrell for the GP Blog YouTube channel.