Mood at Mercedes has shifted: 'World title is still possible'

The mood at Mercedes has completely changed after the third and fifth places in Spain. Especially the pace of Lewis Hamilton pleases the team and Toto Wolff even spoke about a possible world title.

The pace of Hamilton

In 2022, Mercedes is the team that has slipped the most. After eight constructors' titles in a row, it had to sit idly by for the first races in 2022 as Ferrari and Red Bull Racing shared out the victories. In Spain, Mercedes once again competed from the front, George Russell briefly drove P1 and Hamilton had the pace to win.

"This was the first step. Now we have to learn how to get more out of this package," technical director Mike Elliott at Auto, Motor und Sport said after the race. "The car reminded me for the first time of our championship cars in recent years. ''When you can drive from the back to the front like Lewis, that's enough reason to believe that we will soon win races again and maybe be able to fight for the two world titles," Wolff was even more enthusiastic.

Mercedes believes in it again

The updates that Mercedes had brought for the Spanish Grand Prix are catching on and this is putting the German racing team in an excellent mood. Especially the pace of Hamilton makes positive noises. Mercedes' engineers tell AMuS that the Briton would have been able to fight for victory with his pace if he had not lost the battle with Kevin Magnussen in the first lap.

Yet the team also knows that they are not there yet. Hamilton was catching up to Verstappen and Sergio Perez throughout the race, but also knows that Verstappen had a DRS problem and that the Dutchman had a trip that put him behind Russell and lost a lot of time. Also, the pace that Charles Leclerc showed at the beginning of the race might still have been too powerful for Mercedes.