Valtteri Bottas believes Mercedes should be in better shape than in previous years for this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix having “optimised” its Formula 1 power unit.
While Mercedes was victorious in F1’s last visit to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit in 2019, the high altitude is predicted to favour title rivals Red Bull.
Aside from Max Verstappen’s successive wins there in 2017 and 2018, Red Bull was also fastest in qualifying in both the last two visits, but a penalty saw Verstappen lose his pole position lap in 2019.
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin claimed fighting Red Bull as hard as the team did at the recent United States Grand Prix would be the “best case scenario” it could hope for.
Although Bottas agrees Red Bull will be hard to beat, the Finn is more optimistic of its chances, reckoning the progress Mercedes has made with its engine – despite ongoing reliability concerns – will help it deliver a more competitive performance.
“For Mexico, we know it’s usually been a bit of a weakness for us and it feels like quite a big chunk has been in the recent years from the power unit, with the high altitude,” said Bottas, as quoted by Motorsport.com.
“But I think we’ve been able to optimise a lot since, so I would expect us to be in a better place than in the recent years.
“Still, on paper, we think they’re really strong places for Red Bull and we’ve just really tried to do all the learnings we can from previous years and prepare the best that way.
“They’re not going to be easy weekends, but it’s never easy in this sport.”
Red Bull currently has nine wins this season compared to Mercedes’ six heading into the final five races, with both championships poised to go down to the wire.
But Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff isn’t convinced Red Bull’s past success in Mexico means it will be favourites for this year’s event, with both teams having won on tracks they expected wouldn’t suit their 2021 car this season.
“Mexico was traditionally a track that was difficult for us but this season everything can change because we’ve seen that where traditionally our strong ones and they haven’t, and vice versa so I think it’s really race by race,” said Wolff.
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