Mercedes reveal true cause of disastrous Austin weekend as upgrade theory rejected

Mercedes F1 technical chief James Allison believes his team’s torrid United States Grand Prix weekend was down to having the car “too low” and “too stiff” rather than the latest upgrade package.

Mercedes saw both of their drivers crash during the race weekend in Austin.

George Russell crashed out of qualifying, forcing him to start from the pit lane.

On the other hand, Lewis Hamilton spun out of the race in the opening couple of laps at the very same corner.

There were some suggestions from Hamilton that the upgrade package potentially caused the W15 to be ill-handling.

However, Allison has confirmed that the difficulties the team faced at the Circuit of the Americas were setup related.

He said in a video on Mercedes’ YouTube channel: “We had a bumpy weekend, and we had our new clothes on the car, our so-called update 19 that we were quite excited about and still are quite excited about.

“But we also had a whole heap of things that are not normal. Lewis spun in Free Practice. We had George nearly lose the back end of the car as well. George crashed in qualifying. Lewis spun off in the race.

“All the things we measured suggested that the upgrade package was behaving as we would expect. The downforce was there. We did not see prior to the spins anything breaking down on the flow structures under the car. There is every reason to think the updates were good and we will enjoy that for the remainder of the year.

“The spikiness that we saw that pitched us into the barriers on an unusual number of occasions was because we had the car too low, too stiff, and had the handling degrade unacceptably as a result.”

With just one practice session due to the sprint format, Allison conceded that played a role in ensuring Mercedes had “less time” to “dial” the car in.

“Because it was a Sprint weekend, you get less time to dial that in than you normally would,” he added.

“We will find out in the coming races because we will persist with the upgrade package and if it persists in winding up in the gravel, then we will put two and two together. But my guess is it will not.

“My guess is that instead of having the unpleasant weekend we just had, we will see more of the promise that saw Lewis looking like he was going to storm to Sprint Quali pole and George being very near the front in that same session.”