One of the longest victory streaks in motorsport history is in jeopardy. From 2014 to 2021, Mercedes has won the Formula One Constructors’ Championship for an unprecedented eight years in a row. However, after a slow start to 2022, Ferrari has pulled ahead in the title battle. Although it is still early, Mercedes is facing troubling circumstances, with the defending champions already trailing by a wide margin.
Having regularly started the season as favorites to win the title, Mercedes have slipped down the rankings in the betting futures markets. In fact, Formula One betting fans checking out the odds with their new customer free bet offers will see the German team available at unusually high prices.
The scale of the problem
We’re three races into the new season, and Ferrari has already won two of the first three races. In Saudi Arabia, Red Bull also earned a checkered flag, but Mercedes has yet to do so.
The German team isn’t far behind the leaders, and a successful title defense isn’t impossible. They’ve achieved two podium finishes in those three races but have yet to finish higher than third. Lewis Hamilton finished third on the opening weekend, while his teammate George Russell finished third last time out in Australia. Mercedes are 39 points off the lead. Although there is time remaining for Mercedes to catch up, the early season trends are worrying.
Blame the rules not the driver
It would be easy to point the finger at a new driver, but newcomer George Russell is performing equally as well as seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. Instead, the main culprit appears to be the rule changes enforced by Formula One this season, or more specifically, the relative failure of Mercedes to adapt to the rules in comparison with their rivals.
The so-called ‘porpoising’ problem which results in the car bouncing on its suspension at high speed appears to have caught Mercedes off guard. This phenomenon has affected all the teams to one degree or another and is largely due to the rule changes applying to the car floors.
While all teams have dealt with this to some level to begin the new year, Red Bull and, to a lesser extent, Ferrari have been most successful in getting on top of it, while Mercedes have struggled to resolve the issues. The result has been that they are frequently well behind their big rivals and in some cases as much as two seconds behind them.
More speed less control
Solving the issue at this point with the season underway is incredibly demanding. If you increase the speed to make the car more competitive, by running the car lower, the porpoising becomes more intense and there’s a significant reduction in control. Instead, Mercedes have been forced to run the car higher, drastically reducing the problem, but sacrificing seconds and points in the process.
Solving the problem
While Mercedes and drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been clear in their messaging that the car requires more downforce and power, with engines also being a minor worry, they have also been consistent in their outlook that there is plenty of room for potential fixes.
The plan so far has been for the team to introduce phased upgrades over the first few rounds of the tournament, which began at the Australian Grand Prix. However, the scale of the problem and the time it will take to resolve should not be underestimated.
The bottom line, at this point, is that the car is not as good as the Ferrari or the Red Bull cars. For the time being, Mercedes finds themselves in an unfamiliar in-between state. Their car is still faster than most of the rest of the field but is in turn considerably slower than the two teams ahead of them, which limits how many points they can gain. The plan for the team is obviously to try to maximize their points haul and hope for mistakes from Red Bull and Ferrari in the short term.
Summary
Can they turn it around? With their accumulated expertise and arguably the greatest ever driver in the history of Formula One on their team, the answer has to be yes. But the worry for Mercedes and their fans is how far ahead the competition will be by that point. Last year, they overhauled Red Bull, but this time round they are chasing two rivals and their problems are much greater. All the indications are that this is going to be another nail-biting close finish in the Constructors’ Championship.
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