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Toto Wolff says Mercedes are losing the advantage of their works status in their F1 battle with McLaren. Oscar Piastri challenged for the win at the Japanese Grand Prix before finishing second.
Piastri was the nearest challenger to the two Mercedes cars in qualifying, lapping just over three-tenths off the pace. But as the Silver Arrows encountered more difficulties off the line, he stormed into the lead at the start.
It seemed as if George Russell, who dispatched Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc quickly after falling to fourth, would ease past Piastri. But the Australian survived his initial assault and then began to eke out a gap.
No Mercedes one-two in Japan!
Oscar Piastri takes second, with Charles Leclerc third
Just before the first pit stop, a confident Piastri told his team that he could hold Russell off for the remainder of the race. But boxing early cost him in the end as the longer-running Kimi Antonelli enjoyed a stroke of luck.
Toto Wolff says McLaren have worked out how to optimise Mercedes power unit
Piastri was second when the race restarted, and he ultimately lost almost 14 seconds to Antonelli. But his pace relative to Russell in the first stint offers McLaren significant encouragement.
Last year’s third-place man hadn’t even started a Grand Prix until Sunday, but his first appearance of the year delivered McLaren’s best result so far (indeed, their only podium finish).
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Team principal Andrea Stella said Mercedes’ greater knowledge of their power unit gave them a clear edge on customers McLaren at the outset. But Wolff says McLaren are starting to understand how they can nullify that advantage.
“Andrea said at the beginning of the season that as a works team, you have a little bit of an advantage,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1. “The other teams are catching up, how to harvest, how to deploy the energy.
“You could see today, we couldn’t get past the McLarens because they understood, and also the Ferraris had the right strategy in energy deployment. I think it’s good to watch.”
Oscar Piastri says pace against George Russell was ‘a big surprise’
In the post-race press conference, Piastri said that Ferrari’s deployment issues in qualifying painted a slightly misleading picture of McLaren’s one-lap progress. He led Leclerc on the second row, while Norris outpaced Lewis Hamilton just behind.
But McLaren’s race pace, particularly in the first stint, surpassed their expectations, even if their first target must still be getting ahead of Ferrari.
Mercedes are 45 points clear of the Scuderia in the constructors’ standings, with McLaren a further 44 back.
“I think we felt like we could maybe stay ahead of Ferrari [in the race],” said Piastri. “I think looking back at qualifying, clearly something wrong happened with the deployment for both Charles and Lewis, so I think the gap I had in qualifying flattered us a bit.
“To be honest, I think Charles and I had very similar pace through most of the race. That was about what we expected. I think being able to keep George behind was a big surprise.
“Once he got back into second, I thought that he was going to come past in about half a lap and I was going to settle in for second and wait for Kimi to do the same.
“But the fact that we could be so close to Mercedes and beat one of them, I think that was a much more pleasant surprise.”
With a month-long break in the calendar due to the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, McLaren have an invaluable study period before them. Come Miami, they may well be targeting race wins.
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