Press release
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march 10, 2024 - mercedes amg motorsport
2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Saturday
Tough evening on the shores of the Red Sea for the team
- George Russell finished sixth and Lewis Hamilton ninth in this evening's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
- Our duo started on the fourth row of the grid, both shod with new Medium tyres.
- George and Lewis held their initial starting positions of seventh and eighth on the opening laps.
- The Safety Car was deployed on lap seven after Lance Stroll hit the barrier with the team opting to split strategies. George pitted for the Hard tyre whilst Lewis stayed out, cycling through to run P3.
- As the race progressed, those on fresher tyres were able to move ahead and, without any other interruptions, Lewis pitted for the Soft tyre on lap 36.
- He emerged in P9 and put pressure on the McLaren of Lando Norris as they chased down the Ferrari of Ollie Bearman. Unfortunately, despite closing quickly, he ran out of time to make up any more positions.
- It was a similar story for George who closed on the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso in the closing stages but couldn't attempt an overtake and had to settle for P6.
- The team will now be hard at work in the gap ahead of the Australian Grand Prix to try and make improvements with the W15.
- Imagery of the day is available on our media site. All imagery is rights-free for editorial use.
| Driver | Grid | Result | Fastest Lap | |
| George Russell | P7 | P6 | 1:32.254 | |
| Lewis Hamilton | P8 | P9 | 1:31.746 |
| Strategy | Start | Stop 1 | ||
| No.63 | Medium | Hard (L7) | ||
| No.44 | Medium | Soft (L36) |
George Russell
It was a long evening out there. I spent nearly 40 laps within 1.5 seconds of Fernando Alonso but couldn't get past. I had a slippery car on the straights, but I couldn't get close enough in the high-speed to give him any real pressure. P6 was likely a fair result in the end and it's clear that we haven't found the sweet spot with this car just yet.
Overall though, we need to find a bit more performance. We've seen potential and pace in the car, but we haven't shown it when it's mattered. We need to understand why that is and improve ahead of Melbourne. As we've seen, the pecking order behind the Red Bulls is very close so we need to get on top of it. There's lots of work to do but I believe in the team.
Lewis Hamilton
We tried our best to go long today and were hoping that we might benefit from a safety car or a VSC. Unfortunately it never came to us, and we ended up finishing slightly further back than we started. It was worth trying something different though. We gave it everything we had, and that was likely the best result we could get today given how the race played out.
There is potential within this car, but we still need to add a good amount of performance. The car today was pretty good in the medium and low-speed corners, but we were losing out in the high-speed. These next few races will be tricky but we will be putting in a great deal of effort to improve as much as we can. I know everyone at the factory will be getting their heads down and working as hard as they can.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
Today was not a good day for us. It is clear that we are struggling with the car in the high-speed corners. We are competitive elsewhere but in three corners here, we were losing about half-a-second. It was therefore incredibly difficult for the drivers to attack with. We tried something different on the strategy but unfortunately, with the low levels of degradation we saw across the field, it didn't work out for us. Congratulations must go to Ollie Bearman; he jumped in the car at such short notice and drove a great race, particularly in that final stint. It shows just how high the level is in Formula 2.
There is so much learning we can take from these first two race weekends. We need to get our heads down to analyse, understand and improve. It's clear that we've got a lot of work to do but these tough days make you better. Everyone is committed to getting the car into a better place and we look forward to coming back stronger in Australia.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
We've not performed well this weekend. Our high-speed performance has been weak, and the car is bouncing in those corners. That contributed to our poor qualifying but also meant we couldn't challenge Aston Martin and the McLarens in the race. We were losing so much time in sector one that we spent the rest of the lap clawing it back.
Overall, it has been a very frustrating weekend but ultimately one of our own making. We've seen glimpses of strong performance, but it's not been easy to land the set-up in the right place and we've clearly got some weaknesses that still need ironing out. We are going to have to work hard between now and Melbourne to improve. The tracks are similar and we don't want another weekend like this one.
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