Prior to the race weekend in Mexico, the Mercedes camp feared that they would fall behind Red Bull Racing because of the altitude of the circuit. But, it was Mercedes that managed to be the fastest through qualifying and are on the front row of the grid for Sunday's Grand Prix. According to Toto Wolff, it is a reward after all the hard work of the team, especially with the Power Unit.
"Yeah, we have optimised it for these conditions. At the end, you’re trying to extract power unit performance throughout the calendar. And the outliers are somehow difficult to account for," Wolff explained to The Race. In previous seasons, Red Bull were the dominant force in Mexico, but the advantage they held now seems to have been lost. Wolff explains what Mercedes have done to go faster on higher track.
Mercedes the favourite now?
"It’s more a tuning question, it’s not that we’ve put the engine upside down. It’s just we better understand why it didn’t perform at high altitude". Mercedes' move puts Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas on the front row of the grid. Given the long run down to the first corner, it remains to be seen whether this will be an advantage, or whether Red Bull will be able to strike in the slipstream.
In any case, Wolff hopes his team will cross the finish line as winners on Sunday. "There are not a lot of points lost that we can afford anymore, and obviously bouncing back like this is a big advantage. I hope we can carry that into Sao Paulo as well", the Mercedes team boss concluded.