Mercedes commercial director Toto Wolff is bracing for another difficult weekend in Singapore.
Last year saw the Brackley outfit way off the pace around the streets of Marina Bay, as Ferrari and Red Bull battled for victory.
The tyres and setup were blamed for Mercedes’ 2015 struggles, as the two Silver Arrows only qualified fifth and sixth, and now Wolff is not discounting another dramatic shift in performance this year.
“We weren’t competitive there last year and I think we understood why,” he was quoted by ESPN. “We made some conclusions that helped us in the following races and throughout the season, and in Singapore, we are going to check if we were right.
“There is no silver bullet or one thing that went wrong, but many things probably related to each other. This is why I’m really curious and excited to see how Singapore is going to work.”
Naturally, the massive contrast between the high-speed circuits of Spa and Monza and the tight, twisty Singapore streets will mean the pecking order is a little different to what is has been at recent races.
Red Bull, in particular, are seen as potential favourites should Mercedes have problems again, that optimism is well founded based on the team’s performance in Monaco earlier this year.
Ferrari too will expect a much closer fight as they look to repeat their victory from 12 months ago.
Wolff isn’t too concerned, however, about Mercedes’ Singapore struggles. That’s because he believes the race is an anomaly compared to the rest of the calendar.
“You can see where we got it right is that our car is the best compromise over 21 races and you need to have a chassis, engine and aero combination that works well on average,” he explained.
“Then you have outliers and there are teams that are doing extremely well on circuits like Singapore because they are high downforce, but they are not competitive on a circuit like Monza.”
What is more interesting, going into this weekend’s race at Marina Bay, is the performance gap relative to last year.
The difference between the top three teams is much smaller, at least on race pace, than it was 12 months ago.
Therefore, it only needs Mercedes’ fixes to be a few tenths off what they expected for another three-way battle to occur.
Singapore also starts a run of two consecutive races in the tropics, as neighbours Malaysia return to a later season slot.
Sepang was another circuit where Ferrari beat Mercedes at last year, so it will be interesting to see if the heat and humidity play as much of a role as the need for higher downforce.
