Roger Wright94 said:Only five drivers actually stayed on the same lap by the end.
Was Mercedes' performance at the Circuit of Americas just a total illusion?
I’m asking myself—purely rhetorically, of course—because looking back at Austria, Mercedes was lagging behind the leaders by another 0.5-0.6 seconds per lap.
It’s also worth pointing out how smoothly George Russell recovered from his penalty. He looked so relaxed, almost effortless, cruising into P4 after being way back in P19. They have at least a 0.3 second per lap advantage over the rest of the field. They had it before too, but I really expected them to push much closer to the front. The hype was all about them catching up in performance by the time we hit Barcelona.
Haas has managed to score points in two races straight now. Alpine and McLaren are ahead of them, sure, but in Austria, they seemed right there in the mix.
We’ve got two more races coming up with totally different track layouts, so we'll see if what I wrote above holds water or if it was just some kind of Austrian magic trick.
The track was short, so that’s why only five drivers ended up on the same lap.
It’s hard to tell where Mercedes actually stands. They fell apart during qualifying, and then during Lewis Hamilton's race, those two Haas cars just kind of gummed things up a bit.
McLaren should probably be sweating a little; they are definitely sliding down the rankings, and now they're sitting even with Alpine in the standings.
To me, Alpine looks like they have the fourth fastest car on the grid. They seem quicker than McLaren and Haas, even if they can't quite touch Mercedes yet.