Mercedes' commanding performance at last weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix not only delivered to the Brackley squad its first 1-2 finish since 2022 but it also provided valuable insights into finding the elusive sweet spot for its car.
The unexpected dominance has left team principal Toto Wolff optimistic about translating the lessons learned into a competitive edge for 2025.
In a season where Mercedes' performances have ebbed and flowed relative to its McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull rivals, the Las Vegas Strip street circuit brought an unexpected turn of fortune.
The team was fastest in every session, with George Russell winning from pole position and Lewis Hamilton climbing from P10 to secure second place.
Wolff admitted that his team was taken back by its “strange” supremacy. The Austrian pointed to Las Vegas' cool desert nights as a key factor in Mercedes' success, helping mitigate the rear tire overheating issues that have plagued the car all season.
“It's cold. I think that clearly you can correlate where we've been strong,” Wolff explained, quoted by Motorsport.com.
“We've been strong in Silverstone, we've been strong in Spa, and then here in Las Vegas. I think it's just keeping the car in its sweet spot, the tires in the optimum window.
“It shows that the car can be very, very quick. “We were two seconds quicker than our competition at times, when George was pushing, and for the rest of the day he was just managing his pace.”
Interestingly, Mercedes was spared the tire graining issues that plagued its rivals from the outset, particularly Ferrari. Wolff admitted that the team is still trying to understand why this was the case.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Mercedes' performance in Las Vegas was its ability to avoid the tire graining problems that plagued other teams, particularly Ferrari. Wolff admitted that the team is still trying to understand why this was the case.
“Yeah, strange,” said Wolff. “We were capable of pushing whenever we wanted to. There was no graining period, neither on the medium, nor on the hard.
“Charles attempted a few times to put pressure on George, who he defended great.
“I don't know what the outcome would have been of that, but he fell off [the cliff], Leclerc, after a few lapses. “He couldn't hold the pace, we didn't ever see the sign of graining nor degradation.”
Wolff also noted that the trait that has been a weakness in hotter conditions – breaking rear traction – seemed to provide an advantage this time.
“When you break traction and it's hot, then you kind of swing out of the window all the time,” he said. “And when you break traction here, that was actually helpful to keep the temperatures up at the time.
“So clearly, there is a pattern that some teams really love the cold and extract a lot of performance. And there are some teams that have been so strong when it was hot.
“Singapore, the McLarens for example, they dominated and they just controlled it in the way they wanted. So, yeah, it would be important to find a balance for next year.”
Mercedes will now analyze the data from the Las Vegas Grand Prix to gain a deeper understanding of its car's performance and identify areas for improvement. The team hopes that these insights will help them develop a more competitive car for the 2025 season.
“This one is a really important result,” Wolff concluded. “You have fluctuations over the weekend, and then normally you can see we've been good here [in practice], then we've been not so good in that session.
“But here, every single session, we were ahead. So lots of good data that allow us to say at least we know what our sweet spot is, and this is where we need to be. “It's then trying to find out how we can hit that target more often.”
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