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It took a penalty for Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso, however Mercedes notched their first podium of the 2023 Formula 1 season within the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and the crew now sits tied with Aston Martin within the Constructors’ Championship.
That success has actually modified the temper across the Silver Arrows, who now look forward to the Australian Grand Prix questioning in the event that they can’t simply separate from Ferrari and Aston Martin, however push even nearer to Red Bull. The day ended with Lewis Hamilton in fifth place, and George Russell in fourth.
“Today was positive and we’d rather take a small trophy home than none. I think we saw some performance gains to Bahrain which is encouraging,” mentioned Team Principal Toto Wolff in a press release to the media, together with SBNation. “It shows us that the development trajectory is going in the right direction.”
The crew opted for a split-tyre technique, with Hamilton starting the day on the exhausting compound whereas Russell rolled off at first on the mediums. However, in contrast to different drivers who discovered success on the hards, significantly later within the race, Hamilton struggled on the compound. On Lap 9 Hamilton radioed into the pit that the grip “sucks” on the exhausting compound, and by Lap 12 he had slid again into P9, having been handed by Max Verstappen, who began in fifteenth place.
“If I had qualified better then maybe I could have got a better result, but we still got some points,” mentioned Hamilton after the Grand Prix. “My setup this weekend has been the biggest issue I’ve faced. I got it wrong for qualifying and it wasn’t good in the race either, so I struggled today.”
When Lance Stroll’s AMR23 failed on Lap 17, that gave each drivers the prospect to pit, and alter technique a bit. Hamilton switched to the medium compound, whereas Russell opted for the hards. When the inexperienced flag waved, Hamilton was the one driver within the high ten on the mediums, with everybody else on the hards. Russell was in P3, with Hamilton in P6.
Shortly after the inexperienced flag waved, Mercedes bought maybe their greatest information of the season. On the mediums Hamilton labored rapidly previous Carlos Sainz Jr., pushing into P5. “We were a lot closer to some of those ahead and it’s great to be in the top five, ahead of the Ferraris,” famous Hamilton after the race.
That tempo from the Mercedes duo was famous by the commentators on F1TV, who declared “[t]onight, Mercedes seems to have a much better race pace than the Ferraris.”
While Russell would finally see Max Verstappen push by him, he remained in hanging distance of Fernando Alonso, sitting in fourth place late into the race. That is when some controversy unfolded. On Lap 48 Russell heard from his crew that Alonso was being investigated for probably failing to correctly serve a penalty throughout the security automotive. With Alonso dealing with a possible five-second penalty, Russell tried desperately to shut the hole to Alonso.
Russell did not get inside 5 seconds, and got here throughout the road in P4. However, phrase got here shortly after the rostrum ceremony that Alonso was certainly being given a penalty, and a ten-second penalty at that, pushing Russell into third place for a time. More on that later.
The driver conceded that Alonso deserved the place, however declined to look the present horse within the mouth. “Fernando deserved to be on the podium today and I was pleased with P4,” mentioned Russell. “I’m not complaining too much about taking home a trophy though, and we will take the extra points!”
Russell additionally outlined that the outcomes replicate the exhausting work from your entire crew.
“When you put the hard work in and it pays dividends, you come away feeling satisfied. We finished ahead of both Ferraris on merit today and we know we’ve got a lot of performance to come soon,” mentioned Russell. “The gap to the Red Bulls is still considerable, but we’ll take the positives from the weekend, keep fighting as hard as we can and focusing on ourselves.”
As for what lies forward, Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin notes that the enhancements to the W14 are working, and extra podiums could possibly be of their future. “We’ve been busy at the factory searching for performance and the initial findings are encouraging which gives us the motivation to keep working hard to improve. Today, we did exactly what we needed to do, which is to maximise the potential in what we have,” mentioned Shovlin. “We’re looking forward to the next race in Melbourne; it’s closer in characteristics to Saudi than Bahrain, so hopefully we’ll have a car that we can fight for a podium. If there is any more performance that we can bring we’ll make sure we get it to the track.”
Note: Following publication, Alonso was granted his enchantment, and reinstated in third place, sliding Russell again to P4.