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The weakness of Mercedes is now its strong point. There remains only one hope of competition for the 2019 Monaco Grand Prix – and the upcoming season.
Mercedes was losing time in slow turns. Now he dominates the field Motorsport Images
Monaco this weekend, are we looking at the biggest Mercedes whitewash of the season so far? Remember when the team's Achilles heel was a slow-cornering performance? When did his long wheelbase seem to prevent him from being as agile at low speeds as the Red Bull in particular, but also the Ferrari?
This time has passed. As discussed here last week, what was once the weak point of Mercedes is now its absolute strongest. This happened just when Ferrari and Red Bull have encountered problems that deprive them of their performance in the same field: the low speed support force.
The Thursday afternoon training session was marked by the somewhat gloomy performance of the three teams, with broken races, flat tires and so on. However, between the two, the 1min 11.1s recorded by both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas – who put them apparently at 0.7s ended up on tires well above their best performances after both drivers had incidents during from their first laps in flight. Although the fuel load was reduced by the time they achieved their best times, the benefit would have been less than the reduction in tire performance between nine and three / four laps.
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Sebastian Vettel's third best time in 1 minute 11.8 seconds was set earlier in the session, the track is perhaps 0.3 seconds slower than when the Mercedes achieved their best times. Charles Leclerc in the sister car flat and never recovered his session. But in the morning, he seemed to have a slight advantage over Vettel. Given the various flows and reflections of the comparison, this deficit of 0.7 s for Ferrari by Mercedes could be about right – even flattering for Ferrari.
In the morning, Max Verstappen's Red Bull had been Mercedes' closest rival. In the afternoon, he was dismissed because of a technical problem and it was Pierre Gasly who carried the flag of the team, 0.8 seconds from the time of compromised Mercedes. In general, the Verstappen race may have a few tenths on Gasly. So let 0.6sec be an enlightened assumption of the Red Bull deficit. But that's before Mercedes and Ferrari adapt their engine to a level that Honda can not reach yet.
Bottas: Race fans will hope that its shape continues Motorsport Images
The restrictions on the front and under the nose in 2019 seem to have further detracted from the shorter wheelbases Red Bull and Ferrari than the longer wheelbases Mercedes. The change of direction of the Merc is reinforced by what is thought to be a rear-end simulation that improves the geometry under initial load. The front suspension is arranged so as to increase the rake of the car – and thus its downward force to the front – on the high steering lock (that is to say low speed turns). However, this is not unique to Mercedes: Ferrari started experimenting with this technology in 2017 and it worked well for Red Bull at the end of last year. The three cars – and many others – now present this geometry before trick. Interestingly enough in abstract terms, it is not the differentiator that allows Merc to dominate, even on the kind of tracks he has always dreaded.
All this seems to leave us in the hope of Valtteri Bottas to continue filling his record of 2019 not only during the weekend in Monaco – but throughout the season.
In the July 2019 issue of Sports carMark Hughes speaks exclusively to Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto. Subscribe here to your copy and receive a free subscription to the Goodwood Scholarship.
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