Mercedes made alterations: "Necessary to be able to finish the race"

The bumpy tarmac of the Circuit of the Americas is causing problems. Red Bull Racing decided to replace the rear wing of Max Verstappen after finding a small crack, and did the same for Sergio as a precaution. Mercedes has also strengthened their cars, but the problem with the German team is in a different place.

The Mercedes cars are quite low, with the result that they scrape the floor over the asphalt. According to team principal Toto Wolff, the team lost speed for that reason. "The floor of our car had quite a lot of contact with the ground," Wolff told Motorsport.com.

"This causes the car to break down, so we made some adjustments to prevent the car from suffering major damage," he continued. The Austrian states that the team had to make concessions in terms of speed to do so, but that it was the safest choice. "Probably it is necessary to be able to finish the race at all."

Following the qualifying result, the Mercedes team boss sees his rivals as the favourites for the win. "Red Bull are performing very strongly now and on paper their cars are faster, but it's all about Sunday. Anything can happen in the race. I often say that the result of qualifying is often also the result of the race, but thank God that's not the case. We can definitely bounce back, hopefully Valtteri will come back to the front as well," Wolff concludes.