Mercedes: F1 engineer gives Toto Wolff's team glimmer of hope

F1‘s engineering consultant and former Ferrari Race Engineer Rob Smedley has offered some hope for Mercedes that they have time to turn their season around.

The 2022 season is in full swing now with the third race of the campaign upon us this weekend, as we head to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.

It’s the first time since 2019 that the race will be held and it’s great to have it back on the calendar, with it proving a real stronghold for Mercedes in recent years – as so many tracks have been in the turbo-hybrid era.

This year, though, the pecking order has changed and it is clear that Mercedes will be uprooting trees if they get a win this weekend, such is the current advantage that Ferrari and Red Bull have over them in performance.

The season is long, though, and Mercedes have a very talented team working on their issues, with it also obvious that this year will see a rate of development in the cars on a scale not seen too often before, and so there is room for Merc to grow and get back to where they want to be.

Indeed, Smedley believes that latter factor should also be a chink of light for the Silver Arrows in the current tunnel that they are in.

“Mercedes would be the first to admit that they haven’t got it right. Ferrari have done a really good job in moving up and being right there with Red Bull,” Smedley said.

“But I would expect that to change now more than any other year as people find big chunks of performance in lots of different areas.

“The development phase of the car is at such an immature stage, the cars will change significantly from the first race to the final race… There’s going to be a very, very strong development curve on those cars.”