Bahrain has revealed another Mercedes weakness

The head of the Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, admitted that the race in Bahrain showed that the Silver Arrows team needs to improve, among other things, in the area of ​​boxing stops.

The current world design champions were far from the winning form of previous seasons in the opening race of Formula 1, which is why Wolff announced that it will be necessary to improve the aerodynamics of the car, while extracting as much power from the power unit.

But the race showed another weak point of the German team, namely the stops in the pits, where none of them made it into the top ten.

Tire limits are expected to be slower this year, due to larger wheels and covers on them, but Lewis Hamilton and team rival George Russell have been significantly slower on substitutions than rivals at Ferrari and Red Bull.

All six racers of the mentioned teams made three stops each, and the Hamilton's three, together with import and export to the track, lasted 1 minute 16.576 seconds. Russell was even slightly slower with 1: 16.796, which is more than two seconds slower than Max Verstappn (1: 14.236) and Sergio Perez (1: 14.166), and even faster were Charles Leclerc (1: 14.152) and Carlos Sainz with a minute of 14.391 seconds.

Hamilton's fastest stop (25.5) was more than a second slower than Perez's 24.2, and it's not just about changing tires, but also the process of stopping and starting. Mercedes mechanics were judging by the stop times he posted DHL Motorsport, also slower than its counterparts at McLarn, Alpine, Williams and Alpha Taura.

Wolff explained that it is impossible to expect mechanics to be as fast when changing as last year, as, for example, the front wheel is about three kilograms heavier and the rear four, and the wheel covers are also more difficult. “But that doesn’t explain why we are so far behind in this area. If we want to get to the forefront, we need to be better at stops. ”