Mercedes “underperformed” in F1 2024 and “shouldn’t be proud” of their season, in line with former Haas group principal Guenther Steiner.
The Silver Arrows endured one other disappointing marketing campaign as each Lewis Hamilton and George Russell struggled to tame Mercedes’ unpredictable and inconsistent W15 automobile.
Mercedes did get pleasure from a number of excessive factors, claiming a complete of 4 race victories, however spent a lot of the yr because the fourth-fastest group and in the end completed a distant P4 within the constructors’ championship behind McLaren, Ferrari and Crimson Bull.
“I feel Mercedes underperformed,” Steiner informed the Crimson Flags podcast. “Clearly, as a result of McLaren, with the identical engine, did higher. And I feel Mercedes would admit to that.
“It was a very long time that someone with a buyer engine received the World Championship, however they only did a great job. And I feel the laws helped, being secure for thus lengthy, as a result of then, your engine package deal yearly, and the engine being frozen, that helps loads, that the engine doesn’t change.
“And also you adapt your subsequent yr’s automobile all the time what you’ve received, and if what you’ve received properly upfront, that helps you.
“So I feel there was just a few components which helped them, but it surely’s nonetheless not straightforward to do for those who’re not a producer of an influence unit.
“McLaren can really feel nice and Mercedes shouldn’t be pleased with it what they did.”
Wolff has ‘zero downside’ with defeat to buyer
McLaren’s triumph within the constructors’ championship noticed the Woking squad turn out to be the primary buyer group to win the title since Brawn GP in 2009.
However Mercedes group principal Toto Wolff insisted he had no difficulty with being crushed by a buyer and branded McLaren’s championship win as “successful for Mercedes motorsport”.
Requested post-race in Abu Dhabi whether or not he was disillusioned to have been crushed by a buyer group, Wolff informed media together with Crash.internet: “If we will’t win as a works group I’d a lot slightly be crushed by a buyer group.
“I’ve zero downside with that, it reveals us the place the benchmark is.
“There’s no dialogue in regards to the efficiency stage of the engine, no dialogue about driveability of the engine, none of that.
“World champions are our prospects, we struggle on the identical phrases, if they’ve higher execution, higher drivers then that’s fully superb for us.
“It is a success for Mercedes motorsport. It offers us the first goal to win.”
