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Mercedes said their “doom watch” model indicated they would not be able to repeat their Mexico/Sao Paulo performance in Abu Dhabi.
2022 will be a learning season for Mercedes as they look to tame a troubled W13, which started the season in the lead and rebounded too much for their liking.
After a few blunders, Mercedes improved their performance levels later in the season, with the Sao Paulo Grand Prix being the highlight, with George Russell winning the sprint and then the race, and Lewis Hamilton becoming Mercedes Half.
The season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a much tougher race for Mercedes, although the pace gap between Red Bull and Ferrari came back, especially within a lap.
That didn’t come as a surprise to the team, though, with their chief strategist James Walls explaining that their “doom meter” showed the team that a difficult period in Abu Dhabi was to be expected.
“I thought you might have heard of Toto [Wolff] Refer to the doom table,” Vowles said, speaking at Mercedes’ debriefing for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Definitely the fastest car on the track, and it works pretty well.
“It actually correlates very well throughout the season and it does show that, for example in Mexico and Brazil, we’re going to be more competitive than we are in Abu Dhabi.
“It’s a function of the traits that make our cars both strong and weak, and it turns out to be true, and possibly negative, and that’s a very good thing because it means what we know about our cars properties, we actually master them enough that they actually look real in real life, and then the reasons behind them seem relevant.”
Vowles then went on to explain why Mercedes compared to ferrari In Abu Dhabi, Russell scored P5 while Hamilton retires due to hydraulic problems.
Vowles believes this is partly due to Ferrari’s underwhelming performances in Mexico and Brazil, a change in Abu Dhabi where Ferrari was quick on the straights and coped well with tire degradation, a recent thorn in Ferrari’s sidelines. .
“That obviously doesn’t answer the question of why we’re not competitive,” Vowles continued. “Part of it is I think Ferrari took a backseat in Mexico and Brazil and it’s hard to explain why, but they certainly weren’t as competitive as they were in Abu Dhabi at the end of the season.
“They’re a fierce competitor in Abu Dhabi, very, very quick in a straight line and overall competitive with good tyres.
“It obviously doesn’t explain Red Bull and why we went back to them, but I think it can be explained by the nature of our car’s weak points and strong points, Brazil has a lot of corner sequences, corner types, corners that really suit the character of our car Speed, unfortunately we don’t have it in Abu Dhabi.
“The last one was the very, very cool conditions in Abu Dhabi and once we actually raced at night we saw some idiosyncrasies on the tyres, a little bit of texturing on the front axle and the rear axle, which will definitely hurt us in the race.”
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