The team has shared their insights on Lewis Hamilton’s performance in Shanghai, where he clinched second place in the sprint and finished ninth in the race.
James Allison of Mercedes confessed his surprise at Lewis Hamilton’s ability to maintain second place in the Chinese Grand Prix sprint, considering the performance deficit of their car.
Hamilton secured second position during Saturday’s abbreviated race in Shanghai, marking his return to the front row since his pole position in Hungary last season.
He took the lead into Turn 1 after pushing Lando Norris wide. Alongside Fernando Alonso, he managed to break away from the pack, but both were eventually overtaken by Max Verstappen, who went on to win both the sprint and the grand Prix the following day.
However, Hamilton managed to retain second place, marking his best result in a sprint race since the inaugural one at the 2021 British Grand Prix and his best overall result in any F1 event since finishing second in Mexico City, which was 11 races ago. This outcome was unexpected for Mercedes.
“If I’m honest, no, I didn’t expect that we would hang on to P2 because I don’t think the car’s quick enough to merit that at the moment,” Allison remarked.
“The rain was a tricky thing for everybody in sprint qualifying. I think we’ve got to take our hats off to Lewis for absolutely getting it together in incredibly difficult circumstances in that sprint qualifying and cars were going off the track left, right and centre.”
Verstappen made a swift recovery after a sluggish start, overtaking Alonso to claim second place. However, Alonso struggled with pace compared to Sainz, Perez, Leclerc, and Norris trailing closely behind.
Alonso found himself leading a pack of cars with DRS assistance, but Sainz managed to pass him eventually.
Contact between Alonso and Sainz allowed Perez to secure third place and Leclerc to follow in fourth. Allison attributed Hamilton’s second-place finish to Alonso’s blocking rather than the pure speed of the W15.
“He hit it very cleanly and deserved that place, that P2 on the grid. But in the dry conditions of the sprint race, I felt we were likely to get swallowed up by the two Red Bulls, by others as well, because we do have a pace difference to the leading cars at the moment and there’s no point denying that,” he stated.
“However, we were, I think, a little bit, you know, things went our way a little bit with the way that Norris fell off the pace, did a poor start and disappeared backwards.
“And with Fernando then being at the head of the faster cars, they took a while to find their way past him and that bought us some breathing space.
“I don’t want to downplay the achievement because I think it was a very, very well-controlled drive by Lewis who got the absolute max out of the car in that day and it was a welcome tonic for all of us to first of all, put the car in a decent grid slot and then bring it to the flag in that same position.
“But I think the circumstances of the race helped us a little bit with Fernando acting as that buffer between us and the faster guys.”
