On the podium: Lewis Hamilton
(Picture: Pool via REUTERS)Mercedes are stuck “in the middle of nowhere”, despite Lewis Hamilton recording a second straight podium finish at Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix.
The team racked up another good points haul, with team-mate George Russell in fourth, but both Mercedes were way off the pace of race winner Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, who finished second.
Team principal Toto Wolff said: “I think we’ve halved the gap in the last few months, we understand better, but we are still third and fourth and in the middle of nowhere.
“We’re slowly getting there, we just need to keep chipping away. We are missing a few tenths here and there. We are starting to see we are chipping away at the leaders. We want to make this a blip and not some sort of a long cycle.”
It proved an exercise in damage limitation for Mercedes, as both Hamilton and Russell crashed in qualifying and had to climb their way through the field to challenge for a podium, which was gifted to Hamilton following the late retirement of Carlos Sainz. It leaves Hamilton sixth in the drivers’ championship and 99 points behind defending champion and current leader Verstappen.
Mercedes were forced to bring in the reserve chassis for the race, such was the damage to Hamilton’s car, and the seven-time world champion praised his team’s “great recovery” in the aftermath.
“We were looking so good in qualifying and then I crashed the damn thing,” he said. “Getting your head back around that, knowing the team worked so hard to build a new car for me, that affects everything. It affects our budget and so many people have to build new parts.
“That’s never a great feeling, but to get back up there and get great points for the team is just a small token of my appreciation.”
After the high of his home British Grand Prix a week ago, where Hamilton had been a realistic race winner, only to be scuppered by the late safety car, it was a reality check for Mercedes to see themselves still some way off the pace of the Ferrari and Red Bull.
Hamilton said: “We’ve just got to keep our heads down and keep chipping away. We are slowly eating into the guys ahead, but they are still pretty quick.
“I would argue that we’ve not yet been in a position where we’ve been the fastest car. These guys still have had the time. I think we’ve sometimes been able to match their times but, to the point where we’re actually ahead of them, we’re not quite there yet.
“I think we’ve made some improvements this weekend to the car once again but, for some reason at this track, it just wasn’t the same, as they were a little bit further ahead, particularly in race pace.
“I’m hoping when we go to these next tracks it’s a little bit more favourable to us, a bit more like Silverstone. If that’s the case, I would really love to be in the battle that they’re having at the front.”
