Mercedes left ‘head-scratching’ after Zandvoort exposes unexpected weakness

Mercedes has been left “scratching its head” after the Dutch Grand Prix raised some question marks over aspects of its performance at Zandvoort.

Mercedes led the first half of the Dutch GP, with Kimi Antonelli ahead of Lando Norris, but eventually succumbed to the superior pace of the McLaren.

Mercedes investigating unexpected weakness after Dutch Grand Prix

After Mercedes spent the first half of the season as the clear leader in terms of pace, the picture appears to have changed over the past two races – at least on circuits demanding high downforce packages.

In Hungary, McLaren was a clear step ahead on pace as Norris and Oscar Piastri were set to score a 1-2 before the Australian’s retirement knocked that on its head, with the reigning World Champion still going on to take a commanding victory.

At Zandvoort, Antonelli took the lead away from Norris at the restart and, while he could maintain the lead until halfway through the race, Norris created a tyre offset of seven laps before his final stop, before hunting down and overtaking the Mercedes driver.

With Mercedes having been defeated two races in a row, the team offered a public debrief by way of its Nu Silver Arrows radio show, in which trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin appeared alongside deputy team principal Bradley Lord.

Lord pointed out the positives of the overall result, with Mercedes extending its championship lead by outscoring McLaren by three points, while second-placed Ferrari was 15 points overall adrift.

“The feeling is pretty positive,” he said.

“At the airport on Sunday evening, we reflected on a weekend when, unusually for this season, we did not have the quickest car and were slightly on the back foot. Yet when we added up the points, it was our second-highest score of the season so far.

“We did not win the Grand Prix, McLaren was quicker, and Ferrari was strong at different points, but we still extended our advantage in the Constructors’ Championship. Beneath the headline of a second consecutive race without a win, there was a positive championship story.”

But Shovlin was less positive, revealing that issues to take away from the race weekend included spotting a weakness that hadn’t been evident on previous weekends, through certain corners.

“There are several performance questions for us to investigate,” he said.

“We were particularly weak through Turns 7, 8 and 9. That fast sequence also puts the left-hand tyres under sustained load, and we do not yet fully understand why we struggled there. We have some ideas, but it is not an issue we have encountered elsewhere this season.

“It may not be the speed alone, but the sequence of consecutive right-hand corners. We were slightly off the pace in the fastest corner, and the problem grew through the following turns. The rest of the lap looked solid. We improved that area a little for Kimi in main qualifying, but what we gained there seemed to cost us elsewhere.”

With Antonelli becoming vocal through the race about feeling a change in balance, even telling race engineer Pete Bonnington at one point that he felt like he was experiencing aero degradation, Shovlin said there were clear inconsistencies despite there being no clear reason for it.

“The stint-to-stint pace also fluctuated,” he said.

“George’s first stint was relatively weak compared with his later runs, while Kimi started strongly before dropping away. We were not making major changes to electronic settings or flap angles, yet the balance felt different from stint to stint.

“The two drivers also finished with contrasting balance characteristics: George had more understeer and Kimi more oversteer. We need to understand why the difference was so large.

“Even so, it was encouraging to score strongly when we were not at our best. It was a good result, but there is some head-scratching to do.”

With Mercedes seemingly having lost ground to McLaren in the development race, the Brackley-based squad is yet to release its next major update but, until that point arrives, Lord said it’s imperative that the team continues to maximise every opportunity.

“Toto [Wolff] describes himself as a glass-half-empty person, so he will naturally focus on what happened through Turns 7, 8 and 9,” he said.

“He will also look at the wider trend. In Hungary, we were probably close to McLaren on ultimate race pace; at Zandvoort, we were slightly behind.

“We need to establish whether that gap will continue to grow or whether, as we believe, it reflects the different phasing of our development programmes.

“For the next few races, we must maximise the package we have, dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘T’, before the next round of upgrades brings additional performance.”

With Wolff having stated that Mercedes is becoming increasingly conscious of McLaren’s threat in the championship, Shovlin said the ongoing mixture of rivals could play to Mercedes’ favour.

“McLaren has done very good work with its car, but there are also circuits where Lando has looked particularly strong across multiple seasons, including Miami, Budapest and Zandvoort,” he said.

“His style appears well suited to managing rear tyre temperatures while still pushing, in a similar way to Jenson Button at overheating circuits.

“We have had a broad spread of winners recently. From a championship perspective, you look at where the threat lies in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ standings. Lando cannot be ruled out, Ferrari cannot be ruled out and Lewis can be a factor. A variety of winners is helpful to us. One dominant rival would represent the greatest risk in the Drivers’ Championship.”

Given that Mercedes still remains the standard-setter, even if the car hasn’t been outright fastest at the last two races, Lord said the team’s greatest strength has been in consistenty of execution.

“Even at Zandvoort, we remained the only team to have been in contention for victory at every race,” he said.

“We have won several, been narrowly beaten at others and retired from winning positions. Ferrari has been strongest at some events, McLaren at others and Red Bull at several, but we have been consistently present across all 12 rounds so far.

“If we can continue putting both cars into the fight, remain reliable and convert the available results, we should be in a strong position at the end of the season.”

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