Every year since 2014, we have been accustomed to Mercedes realistically entering every race as one of the favorites, and they have sealed the Constructor's championship every year since then, with varying levels of difficulty year to year. 2022, However, might be a little bit of a different story...
Image via Mercedes-AMG F1 on Twitter
As we enter F1's newest era, we see a close battle between two teams at the sharp end of the grid, something not always guaranteed by the onset of new technical regulations. Once again, we have two cars that are nearly identical in terms of speed, but they make their lap time differently, with one seemingly favoring lower drag, the other favoring higher downforce. If I told you in October of 2021 that this would be the case, your first question would probably be "which one is Mercedes?" on the basis of the last seven years. The answer, as it turns out, is neither. Red Bull and Ferrari are seemingly clear of the field, as Mercedes toils in no man's land between the front two teams and the rest of the grid.
Why are they so slow?
First off, if I knew exactly, I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing this, so it's safe to say that we can only speculate. However, there are a few trends emerging that might allow for some educated guesses as to what's holding them back. Also, let's be clear, they are not slow, they are just not as fast as they are used to being. The W13 is still the third fastest car on the grid, so it's not like they've suddenly fallen to 2021 Haas levels of performance (although interestingly Haas have gone the other way, and you could make an argument that they are the closest team to Mercedes in terms of pace, which is crazy in itself). But, the team are behind compared to their usual position and at the moment race wins are out of the question.
The primary candidate as to why they are so slow is the porpoising (or bouncing) that the car experiences. When the season started, all cars (except possibly McLaren) were suffering from this extreme bouncing on the straights and at high speed, a consequence of the new "ground-effect" aero rules. However, most teams have been able to dial it out, or at least run with an effective setup which significantly reduces the bouncing. Mercedes, however, has not been able to dial it out, and still suffers pretty severe bouncing despite having to compromise its setup. As we saw in Bahrain practice, when the team tried to run the car low (more optimal for maximum downforce), parts were literally falling off because it was so bad.
George Russell has said that "99% of the car's problems" could be traced back to this issue, and there is some support for this. The bouncing on the straightaways costs top speed as the car slams into the track, something they are struggling with, it causes extra load through the tires, which can cause more degradation, and of course it doesn't help driver confidence at all. But is that all?
A quick glance at the running order throughout either of the first couple of races and you'll see a trend among the bottom runners. They all have a Mercedes engine in the back. Now, Williams and Aston Martin weren't exactly championship contenders last year, so that's not exactly surprising. BUT McLaren did win a race last year, had a brace of podiums, and was often one of, if not the fastest cars on the straights last year.
This year, all the Mercedes powered teams can be found in the middle or bottom of the speed traps, which might be indicative of a power unit that is slightly lacking. This might be the case, but it's certainly not on the levels of 2014 Renault or Ferrari, or even 2020 Ferrari, that's for sure. Plus, as Red Bull showed from 2009 to 2013, you don't need the most powerful engine to win races if the car is good, it just has to be close. At this point, I think Mercedes is in the ballpark, so the power unit is not really the main issue.
Coincidence or secret ingredient?
One thing which may or may not impact the team's performance is the driver lineup, and specifically the absence of Valtteri Bottas. I agree that he didn't prove enough on track to maintain his seat, and that George Russell is probably the faster driver over a race distance, but off track he was in many ways the perfect teammate. One area I feel he is often overlooked is his technical feedback and ability to develop the car over a weekend and throughout the season. How many times is unclear, but I feel like often after practice sessions, we would hear that Lewis would migrate towards Valtteri's setup, because it was better than Lewis'. Likewise, the team seemed to have a very good car development rate from 2017-2021, something that was not necessarily a strong suit before then. Of course, the setup is in large part down to the engineers rather than the driver, but the driver is the one who ultimately has to sign off on it.
With the arrival of George Russell, can Lewis take the same confidence into the car setup that he had with Valtteri? Only Lewis knows, but qualifying in Jeddah did not do anything to dispel this theory.
Can they fix it?
Given enough time, I'm confident that they can, I mean this is, after all, a group of people who have produced the best car on the grid for 8 years in a row. The question is, how fast can they do it? Of that I'm not so sure. A big problem for the team is that if they maximize a weekend, they can only realistically hope for P5 and P6, unless there are dramas up front. That's 18 points per weekend out of a maximum 43. Now if we are generous and say the front two teams split the top two spots (1st and fourth for one, 2nd and 3rd for the other), that's 37 and 33 points, respectively. So, Mercedes is losing on average 15-18 points per weekend to the front two teams. For Mercedes to have a shot at winning the Constructor's title, they obviously need to stop losing points, and also make up that deficit, so I would say that they probably need to have things sorted before Monaco at the latest, if they are to have any chance.
This is really the defining moment of Mercedes' last 10 years; how they develop throughout the year will likely have knock-on effects for the next 2-4 years. It's all well and good to think that "Well, it's Mercedes, they can't possibly screw up in the long run," but history shows otherwise. Look at Ferrari in 2005, when they went from one of the most dominant cars ever made in 2004 to winning one race, and even that wasn't really a fair reflection. Also, Ferrari was adamant that their car was good and that they would win races once they solved their underlying problems. Sound familiar? Look at McLaren in 2013, who came off 2012 having the fastest car on average, and were adamant that once they got a handle on their exhaust problems the car would be good. Surprisingly, they never did, didn't even get a podium finish, and began years of technical and cultural implosion.
Will that happen at Mercedes? Likely not, but only a fool would say it's impossible for them to fail, regardless of how unlikely it is....
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