Adam Cooper F1

George Russell admits that his Mercedes Formula 1 team has to get back to basics and focus on adding more downforce to the difficult W15.

Russell got ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz on the first lap of the Chinese GP, but he ultimately lost out to both on his way to sixth at the flag.

With Lewis Hamilton recovering to ninth from his 18^th starting position it was not a great Sunday for the team, although a solid performance in the Saturday sprint was something of a boost.

“It was probably the highlight, the first lap and getting ahead of the Ferraris,” said Russell when asked by this writer about his start.

“But I think P6 was a fair result, and a fair representation of where we are as a team right now. It’s been a good weekend, having this format to be able to try different things between the two races.

“In both races the performance was very similar. So we just need to go back to the factory, keep working on the basics, which is putting more downforce on the car.”

The advantage of the new sprint weekend and parc is that teams can try different set-ups in both races, potentially coming away with more knowledge of how their cars work in race conditions and in traffic.

However Russell conceded that Mercedes still has a lot of catching up to do.

“The fact is, Red Bull are still a long way ahead of everybody. And I think it was only probably only yesterday in the sprint race that we really saw their true potential, Verstappen pulling a second on everybody comfortably.

“So yeah, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. We’ve got of course a lot of work that we need to do to close that gap with them, and get in the fight with Ferrari and Lando.”

Asked if he would have had the same outcome in the main race if he’d stuck to the sprint set-up he said: “I think it would have been the same. I think that’s good learning in itself. We’ve had two different set-ups this weekend, both of which produced very similar lap times and performance.

“So the work needs to be back at a factory and ultimately in F1, the more downforce you have, the faster you’ll go. And the setup is the cherry on the cake.”

Russell admits that it’s about getting the basics right.

“I think we’ve understood enough so far that we just need to add downforce,” he said. “We’ve changed philosophies, we’ve changed concepts quite a few times now, over the last two years.

“My personal view is no matter what concept you’re on, you just need to have as much downforce as possible. And you’ll deal with the limitations thereafter. So yeah, let’s see. In Miami we’ve got some upgrades coming to the car. Let’s see what we can achieve there.

He added: “I think there is no silver bullet, and we just need to keep on adding performance, and focusing on the basics, which is in the wind tunnel, which is the CFD, just adding downforce and maybe sometimes it’s as simple as that.”

Carlos Sainz says that he faced a struggle to tame his Ferrari on the way to fifth place in the Formula 1 Chinese GP, admitting that at times “it was a bit wild and all over the place.”

Having survived a crash in qualifying the Spaniard started seventh, and lost a place to George Russell at the start.

Like team mate Charles Leclerc he eventually ran a one-stop strategy, but despite the safety car periods helping out it wasn’t easy for him to stretch out the life of his hard tyres. The red cars crossed the line in fourth and fifth, with the Monegasque driver ahead.

“It just hasn’t been a very good weekend for us as a team,” said Sainz when this writer asked him about the outcome.

“I think we were just not strong enough this weekend, P6/P7 in quali, and clearly also lacking a bit in the race, just with a clear lack of pace compared to the McLaren of [Lando] Norris.

“And in the end P4/P5 given how bad the start went for both cars and how early I had to pit for the hard to then one-stop from there, P5 is actually a good result, given the circumstances.”

Sainz admitted that the car wasn’t easy to drive at times.

“I particularly struggled with the front today,” he said. “In low-speed corners I was just understeering like crazy. We were having to run the kerbs a lot to turn the car, driving around in a very unnatural way in some places.

“When you look at the onboard it was a bit wild and all over the place, going on the sand and grass in some places. It was quite crazy how much we were struggling today.

“But when I saw the track map and I drove the car in the sim I kind of saw that this was going be a tough weekend for our car characteristics.”

Sainz’s Shanghai race included at one point a fraught battle with the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll.

“Honestly, I think everyone struggled a bit to overtake in general this weekend,” he said. “I think it’s starting to get to a point where these cars are tough to follow, tough to get in a position to overtake, and you have to do some of those dive bombs if you want to get it done.

“In that case, I overdid it a bit, but I was going to pass him the straight after anyway. So yeah, we were trying to recover honestly the places we lost at the start, which were a bit too many.”

Sainz says admits that the team needs to find some performance in the coming weeks.

“Clearly we need some upgrades if we want to be a bit more competitive in these sorts of long duration-type corners,” he said.

“I think here and Suzuka, we need something. In terms of maybe circuits like Australia, we’re better off. There are going to be circuits where the Red Bull is going to be clearly ahead anyway, and the McLaren is going to be stronger.

“There’s going to be other circuits like Australia where I think we’re going to be up there. So it’s very circuit dependent. But clearly, if we want to be stronger at circuits like China, we need a better platform for this kind of track.”

Asked if the package currently scheduled for Imola will make a difference he added: “I hope so, that’s the plan. Let’s see if it actually works like that, to try and make Red Bull’s life more complicated. If not, they’re walking off with many wins this season again.

“Miami, I have a better feeling than here. Not an Australia, but I think Miami should be a bit better for us.”

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff admits that this year’s W15 is still “full of surprises” as its form continues to fluctuate from race-to-race.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton could not better sixth and ninth in China, the latter having worked his way up from 18^th on the grid.

Hamilton had a much stronger sprint event on Saturday, even leading briefly before losing out to Max Verstappen.

Nevertheless overall it was a disappointing weekend for the Brackley team, which now has its sights set on an upgrade package that will be introduced at the upcoming Miami GP.

“I think what you’ve seen today with P6 and P9 is not satisfying,” said Wolff after the Shanghai race. “We’re trying to manage our expectations, knowing that the car is full of surprises.

“It was in a good place on Saturday, much better, we were able to – apart from maybe Max – be there, benefiting of course from the battle behind us.

“And it shows that when you’re able to run more in clean air, when you’re at the front, that the performance is better. But today probably with P6 we’ve maximised what the potential of the car was, and that’s just not good enough. And we all know that.”

He added: “I think the car is a difficult car to set up, and difficult car to drive. And that’s why you have these oscillations in performances, in my opinion.

“And I think where Lewis’s car was today was certainly far away from the optimum, and then he’s driving it on the knife’s edge. This where we are. And let’s say for Miami, we are bringing some new bits. It will be interesting to see how they’re going to perform on the car.”

Hamilton started Sunday’s main event on the soft tyre, although he didn’t get much performance out of it.

“The theory said he should have a strong start with the softer rubber,” said Wolff. “And the grip just wasn’t there on the soft, and I would more put it down to our own performance, that we couldn’t really make the steps that we expected. And obviously then it becomes very difficult.”

Wolff insisted that the Ferrari-bound Hamilton is not losing faith.

“I think that Lewis is a pro and has behaved in that way until now,” he said. “Trying to keep his morale up, and the morale of the team, even if the results don’t come. So I think I have no doubt that this is going to last.”

Daniel Ricciardo was left fuming after a heavy hit from Lance Stroll’s Astron Martin under the safety car led to his retirement from the Formula 1 Chinese GP – and the Australian didn’t mince his words.

Stroll ran into the rear of Ricciardo’s VCARB when the field backed up ahead of a restart after a safety car period.

Ricciardo’s car was lifted off the ground, and he was in turn pushed into the back of the McLaren of his fellow countryman Oscar Piastri.

Although he initially continued and took the subsequent restart Ricciardo quickly realised that floor damage was too significant, and he retired the car.

Stroll dropped to the back of the field after a nose change, and later picked up a 10-second penalty, but it was his comments on team radio that riled Ricciardo.

“I slowly started to calm down,” he said while the race was still running and Stroll thus still driving.

“And then I was told what Lance thinks of the accident, or the incident. And apparently I’m an idiot! And it was my fault. So that made my blood boil. Because it’s clear as day, and it’s also behind a safety car.

“I mean, the only thing you’ve got to do is watch the car in front, we can’t predict what the leader is going to do. We can’t assume that we’re going to go into Turn 14 – the race doesn’t start until the control line. So I’m doing my best not to say what I want to say. But f**k that guy. I’m being nice still. But if that’s what he thinks…

“I won’t go harder, because maybe in an hour, when he sees it, he might take some accountability. But if he doesn’t, I can’t help him and nor can anyone here. It’s so frustrating. Obviously, racing incidents happen, things happen, but behind a safety car? That should never happen.”

Ricciardo was particularly upset as he felt that Stroll hadn’t been focussed on the car ahead.

“I think what makes my blood boil is I’ve watched his onboard, to just, let’s say, see it from his perspective, to again try to maybe just have some type of understanding,” he said. “

“And as soon as we start braking, you can see his helmet turn right. And he’s looking at the apex of Turn 14. And he’s not even watching me. And then when he looks back, he’s in the back of me. So I don’t know what he’s doing, where his head is, but all you have to do is worry about me in that situation. And he clearly wasn’t.”

Regarding his own perspective he said: “I could see it was bunching up in 14, and as I said we can’t know for a fact. I guess it was Max [Verstappen] leading. We don’t know when he’s going to go. Even if he bunches up in 14, it doesn’t mean he’s going to go out of 14, maybe he bunches up again, in 15 or 16.

“So you just have to obviously try and stay close to the car in front. But not hit the car in front, right? And yeah, we all bunched up, fair enough, at the hairpin.

“But it’s not like he just tapped me and gave me a punch or something. He went underneath my car. So he hit me so fast. You can’t deny that. It’s not an unlucky thing where he’s just tapped me. He was underneath me.

“I want him to understand that once the dust settles, if he’s still hot-headed today, he needs to learn from this. We’ve all made mistakes. I’ve done it, we all have, but just as long as he understands that he was the one that’s ruined obviously. not only his race but mine, that’s the biggest thing we can take away.”

Ricciardo was quickly resigned to the fact that the car was damaged: “Obviously I felt I was up high, so I knew there was going to be quite a bit. And we had a few corners after that incident before that kind of secondary start.

“And I already felt it was going to be bad. So obviously, we tried on that second one to go, but deep down, I knew we were going to probably retire the call.”

The added frustration for Ricciardo was that he was on the fringes of the points when the incident occurred, despite losing three spots on the first lap.

“It was definitely a bit of a kind of yo-yo race where we sucked pretty bad off the start, which obviously compromised our first stint. Everyone pitted early, so we went longer, and then soon as we put on the second medium we were like very good. I know we were only out there for five or six laps, but it felt rapid.

“And then obviously the tyre is still being pretty good we chose to stay out, so I think track position, and then we’re going to fit a soft at the end I think we would have been in a very good place. So the first few minutes of the race looked a bit grim, but I think we were coming back, and showing good signs.”