Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff could not have wished for a better start to the new Formula 1 season. George Russell drove – apart from a battle with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc – dominantly to victory in Melbourne. Andrea Kimi Antonelli followed his teammate to the podium, taking second place. Russell thus leads the drivers’ championship for the first time, and Mercedes seems to have left the days of the ground-effect cars behind. Yet Wolff remains wary of Ferrari in particular: ‘For me, the overriding feeling now is that we have a battle to fight with Ferrari’.
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Although Toto Wolff is overjoyed with the results achieved by Mercedes in Melbourne, he is not yet convinced that the Silver Arrows will now easily sweep the titles. In particular, the average time of the ten fastest laps of current Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton – 1.22:557 – looked very impressive according to the team principal. “As for Ferrari, people said before the race: ‘You will disappear into the distance, given your previous long runs.’ But that was not the case,” said the Austrian. “We knew they were strong at the start and that is exactly what happened.”
Battle with Ferrari
Both Ferraris got away better at the race start in Melbourne than the Mercedes. Pole-sitter Russell thus lost his lead to Leclerc. “In the beginning, it was a straight fight between Charles and George,” Wolff says. “Kimi was a bit unlucky that the battery wasn’t at the level it should have been – actually in both cars, to some extent. At one point it was a battle between the two Ferraris and George, and eventually Kimi overtook them. The race pace at the end was very encouraging for us, but in the beginning, there was no difference between Ferrari and Mercedes. For me, the overriding feeling now is that we have a battle to fight with Ferrari.”
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Start
Leclerc was able to take the lead from Russell from fourth on the grid. Ferrari has the presumed ability to spool up the turbo more efficiently than its rivals when the cars are waiting on the starting grid for the lights to go out. Asked if Mercedes would catch up quickly in this area, Wolff replied: “I’m not sure. I think it’s down to the hardware. A certain configuration of the hardware and the size of the engine turbo means you might be able to spin the turbo up more easily, giving you a better start, but maybe having to make concessions on other parts of the track or in the race.”
Mercedes has made no changes in that area compared to the test days in Bahrain. “No, we haven’t changed anything about the start. I was happy that we could actually get away, even though the battery in both cars wasn’t fully charged,” Wolff continues. “When you look at the pre-start with the engine revving, you think: ‘What is this? I hope everyone can leave their starting position without a carnage.’ So I think for a first time it was already pretty good.”
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Read everything about the Australian GP here
