Mercedes boss Toto Wolff quipped that he can now sympathise with the plight of Red Bull in the early years of the hybrid era, having witnessed Ferrari’s power advantage in Belgium.
Ferrari claimed a front-row lock-out, having swept all three practice sessions, as it took advantage of its strong straight-line speed at Spa-Francorchamps.
Mercedes edged significantly closer in race trim, with Lewis Hamilton finishing just 0.9s down on winner Charles Leclerc, but its power weakness was nonetheless exposed.
It came on a weekend in which both Sergio Perez and Robert Kubica appeared to suffer failures with the updated specification engine that was introduced for all Mercedes-powered cars.
“I know now a little bit how Red Bull felt in 2014 and 2015 when you are on the back foot on the straights,” said Wolff.“We introduced Phase 3 of our power unit and we had two failures on Checo’s [Sergio Perez] and Robert’s [Kubica] cars which are not understood.
“It didn’t compromise us massively, it did a tiny bit. We were not taking any risks in the race but it was certainly not a comfortable situation because the failures looked to be different and are not analysed of yet and understood.”Wolff also doubted that Mercedes predicament can be improved prior to this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.
“I don’t think you can find 15kph in the next five days,” he said.
“But it is what it is, no complaining. We have just got to prepare for Monza the best we can, knowing that it is not a track that will suit us.
“It will favour Ferrari but we have got to do the best possible job. On a Sunday we are looking much closer, even on the high-power circuits, so I still think that we have got to give it all we have to hopefully win the race in Monza.”
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