Mercedes mood "lower than a snake's belly" after Monaco "screw up"

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas — Photo: © LAT Images

Mercedes

Mercedes mood "lower than a snake's belly" after Monaco "screw up"

Hamilton was a lowly seventh and Bottas retired

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 25 May 2021 18:14

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Mercedes technical director James Allison has described the mood within the team after a disastrous Monaco Grand Prix as being "lower than a snake's belly".

The reigning F1 champions suffered one of its worst results of recent times as a consequence of a number of issues relating to tyre warm-up, strategy and a faulty wheel nut.

The combination of those factors, with Lewis Hamilton a lowly seventh and Valtteri Bottas retiring, resulted in Mercedes losing the lead in both the constructors' and drivers' championships to rivals Red Bull and Max Verstappen.

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Appreciably, it led to Allison's leading remark when asked to sum up the mood in the camp after the race, with the target now on ensuring there is no repeat this season.

"We’ve all sadly been in a race weekend like this before and we know the only thing to do is to pick yourself back up and figure out actually why we were slow because it is the slowness that is the main pain," remarked Allison.

"[We have to] deal with it, come back and do it all again at the next race and hopefully again and again until we eke out the sort of lead that can cope with a screw up like this.”

Monaco an anomaly for Mercedes

The streets of the Principality have generally not been too kind to Mercedes in recent years.

The team may have scored a one-three on the previous visit in 2019, but the results in the two years prior to that were outliers in dominant seasons.

Addressing Mercedes' issues, Allison added: "If you were a proper anorak and you look at our team’s performances at this track over the last several seasons, you’d see that in years where we have won a championship with some ease, we have struggled here.

“Although we have generally been on a path that has delivered a car that is a really broad-sworded weapon you can attack most tracks with, this has been a significant Achilles heel.

"Particularly ironically, a car which one of its best weapons has been its usage of its tyres circuit after circuit after circuit, this particular track we always struggle a bit with that.

“We’re never really getting them happy on a Saturday so our grid slots are low already.

"Then on Sunday, although we’re okay at the start of the stints, by the end where most of the crucial action takes place at this rather particular track where there isn’t much opportunity for overtaking except around that first start, we are normally all out of ideas with the tyre that has died a little sooner than our competitors.

“It is understanding that we have failed to do for a number of seasons and we need to figure out from first principles what we are getting wrong at this track, what is it that we are doing year on year that is just not right for here.”