Mercedes had a difficult Sunday at the season finale in Abu Dhabi – why they were even better in qualifying but couldn’t keep up in the race
Mercedes played no role in the Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi and thus also in the World Championship battle between McLaren and Red Bull on Sunday. George Russell finished the race in an unspectacular fifth place, almost 50 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen.
This poor performance came as a surprise, as Mercedes had regularly been in contention for the podium in the races leading up to Abu Dhabi. The Silver Arrows have now understood why their performance was so comparatively poor in the finale.
Team representative Bradley Lord explains that initial analysis after the race showed “that we could have been more aggressive in terms of ride height.” He reveals: “We suffered from aerodynamic bouncing in the long runs [on Friday].”
“That’s why we made changes [on Friday evening] and raised the car slightly to mitigate this problem, as we believed it was damaging the tires in the long run,” says Lord. But that also affected performance.
In qualifying, where Russell had finished fourth, this was not yet so noticeable on fresh tires with a lot of grip, “but in the race it became clear that we could have been more aggressive with the ride height of the car and some other setup decisions.”
Looking back, Mercedes was “probably a little too conservative in our decisions,” admits Lord, who emphasizes: “It was enough to secure P2 [in the World Championship], which was the primary goal. But we couldn’t bring it home the way we had hoped.”
While Russell finished fifth, teammate Kimi Antonelli missed out on the points in 15th place. With only ten points, the final race was the worst weekend of the entire second half of the season for Mercedes in terms of points after the summer break.
Nevertheless, it was enough to secure second place in the Constructors’ Championship with 469 points ahead of Red Bull (451).