Formula 1: Mercedes still trying to play underdogs after ninth consecutive win

Mercedes haven’t failed to win a Formula 1 race in nearly eight months. But that hasn’t stopped them from continuing to play the underdogs.

Following the victory that Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport’s Lewis Hamilton had handed to him in this past Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix after the on-track race winner, Scuderia Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, was given a controversial five-second time penalty, Mercedes became the first team in the last 31 years to win the first seven races of a Formula 1 season.

Going back to the end of the 2018 season, the Silver Arrows have now earned nine consecutive victories, with seven having been earned by Hamilton and two having been earned by Valtteri Bottas.

But throughout this string of dominance that has the Brackley-based team poised for their sixth consecutive constructor championship and has Hamilton poised for his third consecutive driver championship, his fifth driver championship in the last six seasons and the sixth driver championship of his career, Mercedes have not been shy about playing the underdogs.

This tweet from last month’s Spanish Grand Prix, which delivered to us more of this “underdog” act, sums it up.

pic.twitter.com/Pit3Te0ZVn
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) May 13, 2019

Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff has led this “underdog” narrative, and he continued it even after the FIA took Vettel’s hard-earned victory and handed it to the race’s true second place finisher.

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According to Wolff, Hamilton almost didn’t even compete in this 70-lap race around the 14-turn, 2.71-mile (4.361-kilometer) Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course on Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec, Canada because of his car.

Really?

Okay, maybe there was some doubt about whether the car would be up to its usual standards, as the team did have issues with it earlier in the weekend, including issues stemming from a hydraulic leak that they discovered after qualifying the night before the race and had to fix on Sunday morning. This was definitely one of the team’s toughest weekends in quite a while.

But a Mercedes spokesman stated that they planned to be ready for the race, and unsurprisingly, after some extra work, they were. Let’s remember that we’re talking about the top team in Formula 1 for the better part of this decade.

Plus, to put the idea of Hamilton not competing in the race in perspective, Hamilton has competed in 236 races since his Formula 1 career began in the 2007 season. He has not missed a race since making his debut in the sport.

Here is what Wolff had to say about not being sure if Hamilton would compete in the Canadian Grand Prix, according to Motorsport.

"“What looks to be a victory was a very tough weekend for the team behind the scenes. We had a car that was in a million bits because of the hydraulic leak. We weren’t sure whether we could race it, whether it would finish the race. Then half the team was suffering from a flu, which nobody sees. It was just a matter of pushing through.“We had the engine that blew up on Lance [Stroll]’s car, which we didn’t know if it would affect us. Overall it was one of the most difficult race weekends I can remember even though it didn’t look like this from the outside at all.”"

But through seven races so far this season, this seems like pretty much the seventh “most difficult weekend” of the season for the team if you’re basing it off what they say.

Of course, this is not intended to make light of the members of the team who were suffering from the flu in any way, shape or form. That is serious business and we truly wish them absolutely nothing but the best as they deal with their sickness and make full and speedy recoveries.

But as far as the competition standpoint is concerned, come on.

Even if no exaggerating is involved in this particular case, which could very well be true, given all the sob stories that come out of that garage regarding how they “don’t have the pace” or something along those lines, on the surface, this simply looks like yet another situation of the Wolff who cried wolf, another situation of the team bluffing.

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Obviously Toto Wolff knows more than anybody else does about what goes on behind the scenes, but was Lewis Hamilton really at risk of not competing in the Canadian Grand Prix?

Maybe he really was.

But if he wasn’t, would that stop Mercedes from coming up with something else to position themselves as the underdogs?

They have sure thrived in that self-proclaimed role so far in the 2019 Formula 1 season.

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