By: Charles Bradley, Global Editor in Chief Motorsport.com
Following back-to-back wins for Red Bull, suddenly Mercedes is 26 points behind in the Constructors’ Championship – is this really a crisis for the Three-Pointed Star?
No, not at all. Monaco and Baku are outliers when it comes to Formula 1 tracks and they’ve served to highlight Mercedes’ chief weakness, which is front-tyre warm-up.
When it’s in the working window, the Mercedes is as strong as ever – witness Lewis Hamilton’s opening stint in Baku on the soft tyres. But he couldn’t generate sufficient heat quickly enough into his fronts (after pitting for hards) to defend the overcut of the Red Bulls on Sunday.
However, after Max Verstappen’s spectacular exit, if Lewis hadn’t locked up at the first corner of the restart – due to accidentally turning on the ‘brake magic’ brake bias button – I reckon he’d have won the two-lap sprint to the finish and now be 21 points ahead of Max. How fortunes can change in an instant… |
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