Does Mercedes F1 hide its game really well before the first Grand Prix of the 2022 season? All the elements seem to show no, as the W13 seems so unstable and sensitive to porpoising, in Barcelona as in Sakhir. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell said yesterday that they were not optimistic regarding the chances of victory as early as next week.
But among the direct competitors, Red Bull Racing, we are very wary of the German team and of these comments. To the point of making fun of it, as Max Verstappen does.
“It’s always the same story with them. Lewis can’t see himself winning. And when a team does a little bit better, they’re not the favourites. Fast forward, in a week: ‘oh, we’ve got it sorted , this is not normal, congratulations to everyone at the factory for this incredible work’.”
“Last year they did the same thing to us and they won the first Grand Prix. In short, I don’t believe it,” said the Dutchman when assessing a possible hierarchy following these tests.
The Red Bull driver admits, however, that the W13 “doesn’t look impressive” and that the biggest breakthrough might be credited to Ferrari with an F1-75 consistently in good lap times.
“In all conditions, Ferrari was fast. And their car is clearly more stable than the Mercedes or even ours. They had very few problems but we will see next week if they can erase two bad years having started their project 2022 earlier than the others.”
