07 November 2023 , 17:32
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Mercedes technical director James Allison admitted he never expected the team to have such a bad Brazilian Grand Prix "in his wildest dreams".
The Silver Arrows have shown strong race pace for most of the season, even if their qualifying results have been inconsistent. But their strongest attribute completely deserted them on a harrowing Sprint weekend in Sao Paulo.
A major factor was the huge rear wings they were using. They created too much drag which made them slow on the straights, but also put too they tyres through too much pain in the corners which meant they degraded too quickly.
In the end, Lewis Hamilton could manage only eighth, more than a minute down the road from race winner Max Verstappen, while George Russell was behind him when he retired amid the threat of an engine failure. All that a year after they had secured a one-two finish on the same Interlagos track.
Speaking to the F1 Nation podcast, Allison admitted his surprise over just how much Mercedes had struggled. "I just wrote an email back to the factory saying I feel knocked for six by it," he said.
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"Because we came here, it would have been too much to imagine a repeat of last year because the stars would have to align for that, but I thought we'd be troubling the podium. Now you could say, 'Well, you've been undone by your own hubris' but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that we would have the torrid weekend we just had.
"In some ways, there's a comfort in that because we must have just got something wrong and we'll go off and uncover what that was. And with a bit of luck, under the lovely thing that racing gives you, a couple of weeks' time we'll come back and and hopefully put it to bed."
The fact swift tyre degradation was present, though, is a concern for the team. So much understeer through the corners made it very difficult for the drivers to manage throughout the race, which has been one of their biggest strengths in most other places this year.
Allison added: "The main issue was hot rear tyres, which would give you a snappier end and would give you the sort of tyre degradation we saw, but also an annoying amount of understeer.
"Now, when you've got a balance that's all at sea like that it's very easy to nibble away – with every bit of throttle you put down, every turn of the wheel – a bit of the tyres. And we've got it in a place where a single lap face that was okay, very quickly became more than mediocre as we gobbled our tyres up."