Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes may be forced to wait weeks to be able to fight for wins, according to Sky Sports expert Ted Kravitz. The Sky Sports F1 expert warns Mercedes may not be able to compete for at least the next two races in Saudi Arabia and Australia, with new updates possibly available for Imola in April. He made the conclusion after he said the issue was not “circuit dependent” as the Silver Arrows suffered issues at two seperate tracks.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Kravitz said: “A thought on how long it will take them to sort out their porpoising. The first question, is it circuit dependent? The answer is no – they had it in Barcelona, they’ve got it here. “So it’s not something circuit dependent. When they go to Jeddah, it will just be the same or worse. Question two, do they understand it fully yet? No, they don’t.”
He added: “I think we are looking at the European season, which is after Australia, for them to get their act together at the earliest. “I think they’ve got to live with it next week in Saudi Arabia definitely, and they’ve probably got to live with it in Albert Park. But apart from that, it will take at least Imola, the European season, for Mercedes to sort themselves out.”
Hamilton and Mercedes benefitted from late retirements from the Red Bull air to pick up third and fourth in yesterday’s race. However, Hamilton struggled for pace and looked unable to compete with the leaders all weekend. He struggled for grip after his pit stops and was lucky to pull himself back up to fifth behind Perez at the midway stage before the issues for the Red Bulls.
After the race, Hamilton warned it was not going to be a quick turnaround for the Silver Arrows. George Russell said it was a “good damage limitation weekend” but warned the team needed to “dig into the data ”. Team principal Toto Wolff promised his team would leave “no stone unturned” in a bid to solve the issues.
He said: “I think we were overwinged today, we had too much drag and that is just because we are lacking parts at the moment but hopefully we can remedy that, and make progress on the top two’s advantage. We really need to leave no stone unturned on the PU side and look for all performance gains but the wing was the issue for us today on straight-line speed.”
