26/07/2016
NEWS STORY
Hard to believe but Hungary was 'only' Mercedes third 1-2 of the season. By a similar stage in 2014, the first year of the new formula, the team had achieved six and again last season.
Interestingly, the 43 points a team gets for a 1-2 is the same advantage Nico Rosberg had after the first four events, the German now trails teammate Lewis Hamilton by six.
Asked if he believes Rosberg will recover from what is clearly a 'difficult phase' of his season, with Hamilton having won five of the last six races, team boss Toto Wolff is confident he will.
"At the beginning of the season he won so many points against Lewis, it swings in both directions," he told the official F1 website. "And in that stage right now it is important to finish. It is about avoiding mistakes. DNFs very likely can cost you the championship. My gut feeling is that the championship is going to the very last race."
Asked if Hamilton's current lead will affect how the team manages his impending engine changes and subsequent penalties, Wolff replied: "A championship lead mid-season is not important. You have to fight every race weekend and at the very last race you can start counting.
"In terms of the engine penalty, we want to wait as long as possible, until the moment when we can judge with how many engine and engine components we can go until the end, and then choose a track where the penalty is not as harsh for him. That decision we haven’t made. We will wait until after the German Grand Prix and then it will be reassessed."
But what of the fact that since the infamous race at Barcelona, Hamilton has claimed 48 more points than his German teammate.
"I don’t think that you can see a pattern there," insists Wolff. "We've had very open discussions with the two of them for four years now and the good thing about the two is that each of them concentrates on his own strengths.
"A couple of races go towards one then the tide turns," he continues. "Look back at the end of last season when Nico had a winning streak and carried the momentum into this season.
"When he was constantly outperforming Lewis everybody spoke about the ‘new Nico’. Now the tide has turned, but that has nothing to do with a change in performance."
Of course, the last couple of wins haven't been with their share of controversy, what with Rosberg's radio comms penalty at Silverstone and the yellow flag furore last weekend.
"Everybody complained that Formula One is too boring," replies the Austrian, "we just try to add spice to it! And we do!
"So every Monday we ask for more TV money because we add to the excitement!
"We need stomach pills on the pit wall to survive this permanent suspense," he adds, "just to silence all the talk about boring dominance. We have more stress and then it is only fair to have good results."
Referring to Rosberg's controversial qualifying lap, he adds: "The rules are the rules and Nico complied one hundred percent. He gave it a big lift under yellow and that is enough. Full stop.
"There are a lot of rules and what we should look for is to simplify the rules and make it less. For me it was okay what happened in qualifying."
The Hungary 1-2 came at a time many, including Mercedes, believed Red Bull was on the verge of producing a major threat. So what happened?
"Taking into account that Budapest wasn’t a track where we have been good in the last couple of years, and if you had characterized the track you maybe would come to the conclusion that it is more of a Red Bull track, or maybe a Ferrari track.
"So with our result I would say that we’ve progressed overall in the package: chassis, engine combination - and that materialized in Silverstone and now here. Monaco was a bit different.
"Red Bull, due to the character of their car, are really good in wet conditions," he adds, "so it was great to show the performance that we did here on Saturday and Sunday. I think this could translate into the fact that we should look good for the rest of the season, as most of the teams have already switched to the 2017 developments."
Asked where he feels Red Bull is missing out, he admits: "I have no idea what they do. We have to look at ourselves and we are very honest as to where we can improve.
"It is a constant battle to make the team, the car, everything better, to optimize everything, and as this here was not a great moment for us in past years, we tried to put a car on the track here that would be competitive.
"We are lucky not to have to focus too much on how the car performs on a certain track, we are good on every layout so far this season. And that is promising for the next 11 races considering that there is no more development."