Mercedes crews 'pulling together more than ever' amid title fight

Mercedes strategy director James Vowles says the team's fierce battle for supremacy against Red Bull is pulling the Brackley squad's crews together more than ever before.

Mercedes heads to Brazil this week on the back of two consecutive defeats to its Red Bull rival and to Max Verstappen.

While the Dutchman managed to just fend off Lewis Hamilton in Austin, the Red Bull charger's winning margin was much greater last weekend in Mexico City.

The dominant win has put Verstappen 19 points clear of Hamilton in the Drivers' standings, while Red Bull now trails Mercedes in the Constructors' championship by just a single point.

While the pressure is mounting on Mercedes, Vowles insists both teams are "on the edge" and will likely remain neck and neck all the way to Abu Dhabi.

• Read also: Red Bull told Verstappen 'to stay out of it' in Mexico

"One DNF both for ourselves or for Red Bull would completely change how this championship forms at the end of the season and ultimately, the points gap is tiny," said Vowles in Mercedes post-race debrief on YouTube.

"We’ve got four races to go, 19 points in the Drivers’ and one point in the Constructors’ in our favour. That’s nothing. It’s a reset condition.

"We’ve outqualified Red Bull at a track where they were stronger. It just shows you that each team is on the edge and you have to get everything absolutely spot on in order to get the result that you need and there is plenty of opportunity.

"The result of that is the positives that we can take out of it are that across the last few races even at tracks that perhaps don’t suit us as much we can be there or there about."

The raging war in the championship coupled with F1's grueling schedule, with teams in the midst of a final trying triple-header, is undoubtedly taking its toll on team personnel.

Yet Vowles insists Mercedes' crews, from its mechanics and engineers to its drivers, are uniting and pulling together to give it their all in the final leg of the 2021 season.

"We are in this fight right until the end and I am sure we’ll be until Abu Dhabi until that chequered flag," he said.

"The positives are that the team despite this punishing triple header are pulling together closer than I have ever seen before. The drivers are working together more than I’ve seen before as well.

"It’s a bonded team, a team that is here to do one goal which is to win both championships and that for me is a positive."

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