Formula 1: After rare defeat, Mercedes back to acting like underdogs

After just their third defeat in the first 13 races of the 2019 Formula 1 season, Mercedes are back to acting like underdogs.

Scuderia Ferrari finally secured their first victory of the 2019 Formula 1 season when Charles Leclerc won the 21-race season’s 13th race, the Belgian Grand Prix, at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Heading into this race, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing had been the only team other than Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport to win any races this season, and they had won twice.

Max Verstappen won the Austrian Grand Prix to end Mercedes’ 10-race win streak going back to last year, and he won what was a dramatic German Grand Prix as well.

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Meanwhile, Mercedes had won each of the other 10 races, with five-time champion Lewis Hamilton securing eight victories and Valtteri Bottas securing two.

But after losing to Leclerc and Ferrari in Belgium, Mercedes are right back to acting like they are the underdogs.

Following this defeat, which still resulted in a double podium finish, team principal and CEO Toto Wolff stated that he knows how Red Bull Racing felt back at the start of the V6 turbo hybrid era in the 2014 and 2015 seasons when they struggled mightily to keep up with Mercedes.

Here is what Wolff had to say about this defeat, according to Motorsport.

"“If you would have given me second and third in Spa, I would have taken it before the race, because we know that our package compared to the Ferraris, with the straight-line speed, is inferior. Look at Turn 1 and then the following straight, Sebastian can’t be more off the line than he was, and he was still able to overtake us. I know a little bit now how Red Bull felt in ‘14 and ‘15, when you are on the back foot on the straights.”"

What?

This defeat was Mercedes’ third defeat of the 2019 season, and it was a narrow defeat of only 0.981 seconds from Leclerc to Hamilton. Additionally, despite a Ferrari front row lockout, the Silver Arrows still secured a double podium finish with Bottas in third place.

With 10 victories in the season’s first 13 races, Wolff “knows how Red Bull felt” in 2014 and 2015.

Right.

The struggle is so real.

Yes, Mercedes did struggle with their straight-line speed, and that is primarily why Ferrari defeated them. But we’re talking about one race.

One race.

Coming off of four consecutive driver and constructor championships from the 2010 season through the 2013 season, Red Bull Racing took a major step back in the first season of the V6 turbo hybrid era relative to Mercedes, which still have not lost a driver or constructor championship since this era began.

Red Bull Racing won only three of the 2014 season’s 19 races en route to a second place finish in the constructor standings, and the following year, they went winless in 19 races en route to a fourth place finish, their lowest result since 2007. In these 38 races, they secured only three victories and three double podium finishes.

Yet after their third defeat in the last 15 races going back to last year, Mercedes supposedly know how Red bull Racing felt in the midst of 35 defeats in a 38-race span following four consecutive dominant seasons.

Laughable.

That’s without mentioning the fact that Mercedes’ Belgian Grand Prix result still would have been one of Red Bull Racing’s best results of the 2014 season or the 2015 season, as only one of their three double podium finishes in these two seasons resulted in a victory. It literally would have been the team’s second best result over this entire two-year span.

Can “underdogs” Mercedes get back on the right track in this Sunday’s Formula 1 race, the Italian Grand Prix?

While Ferrari should have the advantage again due to their straight-line speed and Autodromo Nazionale Monza is the fastest track on the schedule, Mercedes have won this race in each of the last five seasons, with Hamilton winning four of these five races, including the last two. This race is set to be broadcast live on ESPN2 beginning at 9:05 a.m. ET.