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The F1 paddock believes Mercedes is seeing the repercussions of prioritising reliability over performance
Mercedes had a season full of highs and lows in 2022, something they will not want to repeat this year. But is it already too late for the Silver Arrows to get back on terms with Red Bull and Ferrari?
While Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has confirmed that the porpoising issues that plagued their 2022 season have disappeared, the team still has a steep hill to climb. Although Mercedes made bigger engine gains throughout the winter break compared to Red Bull Power Trains/Honda and Renault, they were behind Ferrari. While this is an advantage for the Silver Arrows, they still placed last in the speed trap rankings during day one of pre-season testing.
This deficit to the top teams has led to speculation within the Formula One paddock. Is Mercedes facing the repercussions, or punishment, of focusing on reliability rather than performance during engine development?
Performance versus reliability
From the start of the 2022 season to the end of 2025, Formula One is observing an engine development freeze. As a result, manufacturers cannot bring performance-based upgrades to their engines. Instead, they can only make changes for reliability reasons.
In the lead-up to the 2022 season, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi made no secret of Renault’s focus on performance over reliability. This seemed to be a sentiment shared by Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner, who said the following at the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix:
“I’d rather fix a fast car than try and make a reliable, slow one fast.”
Since Lewis Hamilton and George Russell only failed to finish three races between them in 2022, did Mercedes prioritise reliability over performance?
Ted Kravitz opens up about the Formula One paddock’s theory on Mercedes
According to Ted Kravitz, the F1 paddock seems to believe that Mercedes prioritised reliability. During a Q&A session with Sky Sports, Kravitz was asked about where Mercedes is in the power unit battle. He responded:
“Given the sport’s engine freeze until 2026, there is a theory around the paddock that, because Mercedes were reliable with their power unit last year, they missed a trick in terms of designing it to be powerful but not reliable and then being able to fix the reliability, which was allowed up until September last year.”
He went on to point out that, “Renault did that, Ferrari did that, Honda did that,” but failed to mention Mercedes doing the same. Instead, on Mercedes and their power unit, Kravitz said:
“You ask Mercedes. They say we built the engine to do the whole season and in the case of the customers, both Aston-Martins and both Williams didn’t take an engine penalty last year with three power unit elements.
Well, you might say hang on, you have gone the other way, you should have gone a bit more performance. Take the hit on the engine penalty with reliability, but be able to improve that under the engine freeze.”
Kravitz believes Mercedes opted not to do this. He concluded his piece by saying, “only time will tell if Mercedes live to regret that.”
Should Mercedes have prioritised performance and risked engine penalties last year? And have the Silver Arrows made a mistake by prioritising reliability over performance, a decision that could hinder future results?
Feature Image Credit: @MercedesAMGF1 on Twitter