Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has said he “sees positives” from McLaren’s win in Miami as it shows what can be achieved with the marque’s Formula 1 engine.
McLaren took its second victory since the sport introduced V6 turbo-hybrid engines in 2014, with Lando Norris ending his 110-race wait to achieve his debut F1 win.
However, Mercedes endured another underwhelming outing in the Sunshine State as Lewis Hamilton came home in sixth place, with George Russell two places back.
Despite the interruption of the Safety Car bunching the pack together at the mid-race distance, Hamilton wound up 16.5 seconds behind race winner Norris’ McLaren.
But Wolff believes that McLaren’s success in showing its power unit is competitive should motivate Mercedes to deliver the upgrades to replicate its customer squad.
“I want to congratulate McLaren, Lando, Zak [Brown], Andrea [Stella] and the team, because we looked at last year’s results and they were 16th and 19th in qualifying and race. They have made such a massive step since last summer,” Wolff said.
“And they won fair and square, and this is with a Mercedes engine.
“And that is so important for all of us to see that you can make these steps if you bring in the right upgrades and do the right work.
“So, I see only positives. Lando’s victory was overdue for a long time. It’s good for the sport, so I see lots of positives.”
Hamilton courted Sergio Perez’s Red Bull for fifth place on the same Medium rubber in the closing laps but could not create a passing opening on the Mexican driver.
Wolff was left pleased with how Mercedes navigated the complexities of the Sprint weekend without repeating the drastic set-up changes that cost the team in China.
“In terms of the positives for the teams, we were quicker than Perez at the end on the same tyre,” he continued.
“Probably quicker than the bunch ahead, but they were on the Hard, so you need to see that in a relative way.
“On the Hard, we struggled a lot, but I wasn’t happy on Friday at all with the Sprint race.
“Then we put in some solid work, structured for the Grand Prix qualifying, accepting that this is the pace level at the moment and then just carrying it over into the race.
“And finishing sixth and eighth is not something to be proud of, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Russell was stuck behind RB’s Yuki Tsunoda throughout the closing laps, with Wolff attributing his troubles to the W15 being vulnerable on the hardest compounds.
“I think George struggles with the… Oh, not George. It’s the car that struggles with the Hard tire. Not getting any grip of it,” he assessed.
“You could see there was not a lot of pace, No grip on that tyre, no? It was shit.
“On the Medium, there was much more grip, especially on the second stint with Lewis. He seemed to be quicker than Perez and that was the only benchmark on the Medium.”
