Austrian Grand Prix, Sunday 30th June 2019. Spielberg, Austria.
Mercedes’ technical chief James Allison is wary of that, as well as Mercedes’ recent struggles at the circuit, which is repeated will be compounded by the fact the venue will host two races.
“There’s no doubt that Max is going to be a formidable opponent for us this year,” Allison told the F1 Nation podcast.
Although Mercedes has won four Austrian GP’s since the track returned to the calendar, they have struggled in recent seasons and Allison is keen to prove those were anomalies.
“Our campaign in Austria last year was hampered by our own mistakes on the cooling side, which meant that we were chugging around way off the actual natural pace of the car,” he explained.
“And the year before, [we were] hampered by some unreliability and rather clumsy moves around the Safety Car. So I think we’re all looking forward to getting to Austria, and maybe showing a bit more of what we’re capable of than the slight under performance that we put in in the previous two seasons.”
Source: Motorweek