Sirotkin sees problems at Mercedes: 'They struggled more than usual'

Last weekend was not the weekend for Mercedes. It doesn't happen often, but in Monte Carlo, Valtteri Bottas crashed out due to a failed pit stop and Lewis Hamilton fell short of P7 due to the wrong strategy.

This was also picked up by a lot of other people. One of those people was Sergei Sirotkin. The former Williams F1 driver wrote in his column on Formule1.nl how surprised he was about Mercedes' past weekend.

"In the last few months, we saw why Mercedes is a winning team. Even if a weekend doesn't go as desired, they often manage to squeeze everything out of it and win a race. So it was strange to see that Monaco was the first weekend that they really seemed to be off the pace. We said at the start of the season that Red Bull had to learn from those little mistakes or they wouldn't be good enough for the championship. However, this weekend Mercedes were even more errant than Red Bull have ever been this year," said the Russian.

Mercedes were not themselves

Sirotkin, too, reckoned a Monaco weekend would be in Red Bull's favour. According to him, however, it was not just Red Bull that was made for the street circuit in Monaco, but also Mercedes' problems that meant Red Bull now lead in both standings. "Red Bull has often been the dominant force in Monaco, but you would still expect Mercedes to be the second team. However, they struggled more than usual. Everything that went against them piled up and that is not for Mercedes. A place on or near the podium should be achievable, even if it is close. Seventh was a really poor result though." Mercedes will try to get revenge during the next race weekend in Baku.