Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff admits that it’s “difficult to comprehend” the constant evolving disparity between its drivers across the entire 2023 Formula 1 season.
Lewis Hamilton ended the year classified five places and 60 points clear of George Russell in the standings, but the two were evenly matched when it came to one-lap pace.
But although the British pair were tied 11 apiece in the qualifying head-to-head, the two Mercedes drivers only wound up next to each other on the grid on six occasions.
Amid the German marque’s struggles with its troublesome W14 car, Mercedes encountered trouble ensuring both Hamilton and Russell maximised a given weekend.
That trend was exposed again at the final round in Abu Dhabi, with Russell securing a place on the podium while Hamilton exited in Q2 and trailed 24s further back in ninth.
However, Wolff contends that the contrasting fortunes of the two Ferrari drivers showed that Mercedes was not the only outfit to experience the issue during the past season.
“It’s just difficult to comprehend that good drivers in various teams have these oscillations of performance,” Wolff said.
“You have seen it this weekend with Sainz and Leclerc, you’ve seen it with George and Lewis, Oscar [Piastri] and Lando [Norris, at McLaren], and the obvious one is [Sergio] Perez and [Max] Verstappen.
“Perez is not a second slower than Max, so what is that? Because we have seen it swinging in both directions.”
Having lagged considerably behind Hamilton in both the United States and Mexico City, Russell attributed the pattern to the driver on the backfoot trying to overcompensate.
“That’s definitively something we’ve noticed, Lewis and I, over the course of the year, I don’t think we’ve ever been on the same pace,” Russell reviewed last month.
“I think over the last two years our qualifying record is almost the same, but it’s either one driver is 0.4s or 0.6s ahead or it’s the other.
“It’s something we’re trying to understand, I think, often, when you’re slightly on the back foot, as a driver, you’re chasing to close that gap, and sometimes, in doing so, you take a step back, rather than naturally close that gap, so it’s something I’m trying to figure out myself, and I’m sure he’s trying to figure out as well.”
However, Wolff believes the problem originated from the delicacy of the Pirelli tyres leaving drivers susceptible to falling outside of the ideal operating window.
“So fundamentally, I think it’s all around the tyre deg,” Wolff continued.
“If you’re able to have the car in a sweet spot, a stable platform that you start to work with at the beginning of the weekend then you can extract performance. I think if you’re not, there’s just no performance, you’re falling off the cliff, literally.
“So I have no explanation for that. I think the only one this year who has understood how to drive these tyres is Max.”
