According to George Russell, Mercedes’ lack of pace relative to Red Bull at the Bahrain Grand Prix was prominently because of the sensitivity of the W12 towards windy conditions.
During the first weekend of the season at Bahrain, winds clocking up to 50km/hour hit the track causing problems for all the participants.
Russell believes that Mercedes and Williams are in the same boat with their cars which apparently are highly sensitive to the wind conditions.
“Well obviously there’s only been ten days or so since testing until this race. Something as substantial as that will require a complete redesign and we’ve not done it.
“It’s what we’ve got, it’s what a lot of teams have got. Time will tell, but I believe that potentially Mercedes are in the same boat.”
During testing, Red Bull seemed to have the strongest car while on the other hand, Alfa Romeo, the main rival of Williams back in 2020, was well clear of the Grove-based outfit in Bahrain.
“They [Mercedes] probably struggled more this weekend than you’ll see them struggle at races in the near future. And perhaps Red Bull and the likes of Alfa Romeo were more competitive compared to the rest of the field than we will see in races to come.
“So they were very windy conditions, 50 km/h winds, it’s very open, very exposed, and when you’re driving around at 300 km/h even a five km/h wind makes a difference, so you can imagine what 50 km/h is like, with gusts of 60/70/80km/h.”
Even though strong winds had hampered the progress of many teams at Bahrain, only time will bring out the strongest.
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