After their miserable 2022, and lacklustre displays at the opening two rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Mercedes had their strongest qualifying of the season in Melbourne, with168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: George Russell and168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Lewis Hamilton taking second and third respectively. 

Their encouraging pace translated into Sunday’s race with Russell and Hamilton both making strong starts to pounce on 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen and move into🤪 an early 1-2 on a thr🦂illing opening lap. 

Russell’s race was eventually curtailed by an engine failure that will give Mercedes some cause for concern. But Hamilton was able to cover off 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Fernando Alonso prior to the wild finish andಌ claim second place on merit in a much-needed boost for the Brackley squad.&nꦅbsp;

What was behind Mercedes’ improvement? 

Mercedes’ sudden improvement took everyone by surprise, including themselves, considering they had not brought any p♎erformance upgrades to Melbourne. 

Team boss Toto Wolff admitted after qualifying that Mercedes’ much-improved competitiveness was unexpected, and suggested it was likely the r📖esult of a combination of factors coming together. 

Qualifying 🅘took place in cooleꦏr temperatures and while some teams were having trouble with tyre warm-up, Mercedes aced their tyre preparation. 

"The tyres play a big factor," Russell noted. "When you get them in the sweet spot, you make a big jump. I improved 0.4secs in my last run and unfortunately ༺it is always tyres, tyres, tyres.”

Red Bull were among those struggling, which may ♚partly explain how Mercedes were suddenly able to slash their previous one-second deficit down to a couple of tenths. 

Verstappen’s teammate, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Sergio Perez, was out of the picture having suffered a disastr𒊎ous Q1 elimination, further boosting the final positioning of the two Mercede⛄s. 

In Sun🍬day’s race, which took place in hotter conditions, Mercedes maintained their strong pace on their way to sealing their best result of the season so far.

Can Mercedes really catch Red Bull? 

Russell boldly claimed he saw 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:“no reason” why Mercedes couldn’t have beaten Verstappen to the win in Melbourne,🐈 but in reality, Red Bull𝔍’s RB19 looked to be on another planet. 

While Mercedes’ performancꦿe against Red Bull appeared much better - with Hamilton able to keep within 10 seconds of Verstappen throughout - Red Bull’s true advantage was ultimately skewed by the multiple Safety Car and red flag interruptions. 

Despite mixing it up with Verstappen early in the race, Hamilton was powerless to prevent the Dutchman breezing past with his168澳洲幸运5官💟方开奖结果历史:🐟 “insane” straightline speed and “crazy downforce”. 

It was here that Verstappen revealed the ominous pace of his Red Bull by turning a 0.5-second deficit to Hamilton into a 2-second advantage by the ꦿfollowing lap.

Verstappen’s apparent pace-management in Melbourne led Russell to claim that Red Bull are 168澳洲幸运ꦆ5官方开奖结果历史:deliberately hiding their true potential to avoid intervention from the FIA to ꩲpeg back their advantage.

Nevertheless, Hamilton still believes Mercedes can reduce the gap to Red Bull o🌠ver the course of the season.&nbs🦩p;

“I still feel uncomfortable in the car. I still don’t feel connected to itꩲ,” said Hamilton, who revಌealed ahead of the weekend he is struggling with the further-forward cockpit of the W14. 

"I'm driving as best I can with that disconnec꧃t and I'm working as hard as I can to try and create that connection. But I think it's a long project.

“But still, 🏅considering we've been down on performance, we're clearly down on straight [line] pace compared to the Red Bulls, for us to be up here fighting with Aston [Martin, third in Melbourne] is just amazing at this point in the season,” he said. 

"We just have to keep on fightin𓂃g. A big, big thank you to all the people back at the factory. Let's keep pushing.

"We can close that gap. It's going to be tough ⛦but not impossible."

But Mercedes will not be getting carried away with their much-improved showing in Australia, acc💃ording to Wol🦄ff. 

"We will have to think about why we were so fast here," he said🉐. "We mus𓂃t not delude ourselves, but we will definitely maintain our development direction and take one step at a time forward."