Mercedes continued its difficult start to the new season as George Russell finished fifth at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, while team-mate Lewis Hamilton recovered from his first Q1 knockout in over four years to score a point for P10.
After crossing the line for 10th, Hamilton asked Mercedes engineer Pete Bonnington if there was “even a point for that position”. The seven-time world champion said after the race Mercedes was “still far off” Red Bull and Ferrari, who locked out the top four positions in both qualifying and the race.
Mercedes F1 chief Wolff admitted after the race that while the lead fight between Red Bull and Ferrari was good news for F1 as a whole, to not be part of it after winning eight consecutive constructors’ titles was difficult for the team.
“We were right in the middle of those fun games in the front, and talking as an F1 stakeholder and benefiting from a great show, that is really spectacular to look at,” Wolff said.
“But on the other side, it is extremely painful to be not part of those fun games, and by quite a chunk of lap time deficit.
“We're not going to rest until we are back in the mix. But you're absolutely right: it's no fun at all. [It’s] an exercise in humility, and it's going to make us stronger in the end, even though it's not funny right now.”
Mercedes already sits 40 points behind Ferrari at the top of the constructors’ championship and is just one point clear of Red Bull, who failed to score any points in the Bahrain season-opener.
The root of Mercedes’ struggles is the extreme porpoising it faces with the W13 car, which emerged during pre-season testing and is yet to have been fully understood or remedied.
Russell said after the race that the porpoising was responsible for “99% of our issues”, and the team had been making “baby steps” to fix the problem.
Wolff was reluctant to estimate how Mercedes would compare to Red Bull and Ferrari once it had sorted the problem given the team was yet to fully see what the W13 was capable of.
“We're not running the car where we wanted to run it,” Wolff said. “Therefore it's very difficult to really assess what the lap time deficit is if we were able to run the car lower.
“I would very much hope that the gap is much closer to what we've seen today. But there are deficits everywhere.”
