Bahrain GP: Tyre problems continue to plague Mercedes

Nico Rosberg gave Mercedes their second consecutive pole position at Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, replicating team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s session-topping effort from the last race in China and highlighting the step forward the Brackley-based squad has made over the winter. But come ‘Race Day’, and as we saw with Hamilton in China, tyre wear – Mercedes’ age old bugbear – struck again, dropping the German down the field. [caption id=“attachment_718126” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Lewis Hamilton is in third place in the F1 Driver’s Championship despite Mercedes’ tyre issues. AFP[/caption] Mercedes were always expected to struggle in the heat in Bahrain and Rosberg’s pole position came as a surprise to many given the Silver Arrows had not really featured in practice. Even as Rosberg sat answering questions in the post-qualifying press conference, there was a sense that pole position would be as good as it gets for Mercedes in Bahrain. “For sure the competition is going to be tough, definitely. Difficult to say if we have enough pace to win the race tomorrow but for sure we’re going to try and I look forward to starting first – definitely,” Rosberg had said after qualifying. Despite Rosberg’s optimism that he could try and fight for the win, it was clear from the get-go that the German didn’t have the pace to stay at the front. He kept the lead at the start as Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso battled for second place and tried hard to keep the reigning world champion at bay in the early laps but could do nothing as Vettel’s significantly faster Red Bull sailed past on lap three. A couple of laps later Alonso also found his way past, and Rosberg was under pressure from the Force India of Paul di Resta. “We were using the rear tyres too much and at the end, I was really struggling and wasn’t able to push hard enough. There is a lot of work ahead and we need to focus on why our race performance isn’t matching the pace that we can show in qualifying,” Rosberg, who made four stops over the course of the 57-lap race, said after finishing ninth. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who had started ninth after being docked five places for changing his gearbox ahead of qualifying, also struggled with the tyres early on. It’s only when temperatures dropped towards the end of the race that the Briton found some speed, managing to salvage a fifth place finish in the end. To be fair, Mercedes have made a significant step up this year, both in overall performance and in looking after their tyres, with the German marque having largely struggled in the first three years since they returned to the sport in 2010 as a manufacturer. The team has assembled a technical team packed with highly reputed bigwigs (some would say too many), hired Lewis Hamilton to replace the aging seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and there just seems to be a certain freshness, a certain energy to the squad that appeared to be lacking as they struggled along from one poor result to another. All those changes seem to be paying off and there’s no question they have the speed. Over the four races so far they’ve claimed pole position twice with the other two going to Sebastian Vettel. They have also scored two podiums and Lewis Hamilton sits third in the championship, which is impressive given the team were struggling to score points towards the end of last year. They’re there or thereabouts, on the verge of breaking into the top teams club and fighting consistently for the win week in and week out. But they are just lacking that little bit extra. As team principal Ross Brawn said to Hamilton over the radio after the 2008 world champion’s third place finish in China: “We are not quite there yet, but we are not so far away so let’s keep working hard.”