mercedes-web-st

Picture Credit: Twitter

Formula 1 team Mercedes have not got the desired results in the 2022 season. They have been just left behind in the race to the title with Red Bull and Ferrari taking massive leaps. The team that won seven titles on the trot now looks out of contention and is even struggling to challenge the other top two teams. Having the likes of Lewis Hamilton, the most successful among the current pool of F1 drivers, has not helped Mercedes either this year. 

But why is that happening and is there any scope for improvement? Certainly, there is. A champion team like Mercedes can’t lag behind for long and they showed in a few of the races this season. Lewis Hamilton managed a couple of podium finishes right before the summer break and was almost looked on course for his first win of the season at the Dutch Grand Prix before Safety Cars ruined his chances. 

Now, as there are the slightest chances of Mercedes making a comeback and getting back in the title race, the team is focusing on closing the small gaps that will help them give a neck-to-neck fight to Red Bull. F1 mechanic Marc Priestley who has previously worked with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren has claimed that Mercedes will be back in the competition next year by adding the ‘final ingredient’ to their resource hub. 

Priestly has said that Mercedes have nine out of 10 things required to win the championship, the only missing thing at the moment for them is the right car which the former F1 mechanic thinks they are already getting sorted. 

“It’s like the ingredients of a cake. If you’ve got nine out of 10, you’re going to get an average cake, it’s not going to taste quite right or it won’t rise, you need all 10. And over the last seven years or so, I think Mercedes and Lewis have pretty much had all 10 – they’ve got everything right, they’ve got the whole package. And that’s why they’ve been so dominant,” said Priestly on the Pitlane Life Lessons Podcast.

“This year, they’ve still got nine out of 10, but the car hasn’t quite been right. They’ve still got the right team, the right people, the resources in the right place, the right team culture, they’ve got the right attitude, all of those things are still there that made them champions for seven years on the trot.

“And I think just the fact they didn’t quite get the car right with this changing set of regulations. Yes, it means they’re not at the very top, but because everything else is there, they’ll get there. And they’ll gradually incrementally improve the car until the final ingredient is back in place. And you know, it’s much easier to go that way round, I think, than ‘stumble’ across a great car.”