Red Bull believes Mercedes will soon treble the fight for Formula 1 titles

The Mercedes F1 entered 2022 with very serious problems, largely due to its inability to deal with the W13’s porpoise in straight lines – something Brockley aerodynamics is trying to achieve without compromising lift production over the new ‘Silver’s’ original design to enter arrow”.

The jumps, in turn, don’t allow the team to fully understand the W13 and adjust as needed to bring its speed to the surface. The problem is so big that ten days ago he let Lewis Hamilton out of Q2 in the qualifying tests of the Saudi Arabian GP. The Mercedes W13 is clearly the third fastest car in F1 so far.

One of the big questions ahead of the Australian GP in the next three days (April 8-10) is whether and to what extent Mercedes has found a solution to these problems. However, Red Bull Racing Helmut Marco estimates that moment will not last long and Mercedes will soon enter this year’s RBR battle with Ferrari.

In fact, the Austrian said we still can’t talk about the end of the “Mercedes era”, the team’s eight-year dominance combined with the transition to the hybrid engine era in 2014.

“The post 2014 era coincided with the new engines and Mercedes had amazing dominance at that point. It was almost two seconds ahead of everyone, but of course they didn’t show it. Now, with the chassis and engine changes, the differences.” They’re not that big. Mercedes doesn’t press a button and just party.” emphasized the Austrian.

And he continued: “But this team is in a very good position and also has some very capable chassis guys. I’m absolutely convinced that if they face porpoises they will come back. And Lewis Hamilton is 9 points behind Max (Ferstappen).” There is nothing. I don’t think an era is over, but maybe we’ll see a fight on an equal footing.”

Marco also addressed the issue of power lag from Mercedes engines, which not only the champion seems to have, but also McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams – who use the same powertrain.

The Austrian estimate assumes that this results from this year’s new biofuels, which now consist of 10% ethanol: “I don’t know what Mercedes left behind, it certainly has something to do with synthetic fuels going from 5% to 10%. Logic says that’s the explanation. And of course the loss of so many important people – first Andy Cowell (former Head of Engine Engineering at Mercedes HPP), and then almost 50 other employees.” concluded Marco.

However, if we define the era of Mercedes F1 engine dominance from the first year of hybrid cars in 2014 to recently, the performance of the Honda engine last year and Ferrari this year definitely put an end to that era.