Formula 1: For Mercedes, when it rains, it pours

Mercedes’ Brazilian Grand Prix turned disastrous in a split second, and like many of their few poor Formula 1 races have in recent years, it turned disastrous for the entire team.

There is not a smoother operation in Formula 1 than Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. There perhaps hasn’t been a smoother option in Formula 1 history than the team that have won all six constructor championships and all six driver championships since the start of the V6 turbo hybrid era in 2014.

But when things go wrong for the Brackley-based team, which entered Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace with 93 pole positions and 88 victories in the 119 races that had been contested since the 2014 season, they really go wrong.

The 71-lap race around the 15-turn, 2.677-mile (4.308-kilometer) Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace road course in Sao Paulo, Brazil was just another illustration of that concept.

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This race was mostly a battle between Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen, who started the race from the pole position. Verstappen led the race on lap 52 when Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas was forced to retire with a hydraulics issue, bringing out a safety car.

Hamilton led the field on the ensuing restart after Verstappen came into the pits for new tires and dropped back to second place, but Verstappen made quick work of Hamilton to retake the lead. A few laps later, Ferrari teammates Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel crashed in a battle for fourth, bringing out another safety car.

This time, Hamilton came into the pits, dropping to fourth place as a result. Verstappen now led on the restart with just two laps remaining ahead of rookie teammate Alexander Albon in second and Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly in third.

Hamilton made quick work of Gasly for third place. But he made contact with Albon in a battle for second, sending Albon spinning and damaging Hamilton’s front wing, allowing Gasly to pass both drivers for second. Hamilton went on to finish in third.

But because he cost Albon what would have been the first podium finish of his career with this contract, the 34-year-old Briton was issued a five-second time penalty. Because the field were so packed up at the end of the race given the fact that the final restart took place with only two laps remaining, this dropped him all the way down to seventh place.

This is not the first time that an issue for one Mercedes driver either led to an issue for another or simply happened in the same race as another. For the Silver Arrows, when it rains, it pours.

This was most recently on display in the German Grand Prix at the Hockenheimring. Hamilton dominated the race early on from the pole position. But he lost control of his car in the rain on several occasions, and he even asked to retire his car after it had been damaged and it was clear that a decent result was out of the question. He fell well outside of the top 10 in the closing laps of the race.

Bottas, meanwhile, was up at the front fighting for at least a podium finish. Then he crashed hard due to the rain. Hamilton ended up crossing the finish line in a point-less 11th place, although he was promoted to ninth after post-race penalties were issued to Alfa Romeo Racing teammates Kimi Raikkonen and rookie Antonio Giovinazzi.

Before that race, the most recent race in which a Mercedes driver was forced to retire was the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring. Both drivers were forced to retire from this race with mechanical issues. At no other point throughout the 21-race season did either one of them retire.

Bottas did fail to finish the Azerbaijan Grand Prix at Baku City Circuit due to a flat tire after leading late, but he was knocked out of contention with under three laps remaining, so he was still classified as having finished in 14th place.

Prior to that, Mercedes’ most recent retirement came via a Bottas engine issue in the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Fortunately for Hamilton, he did not endure the same misfortune, or any misfortune, as he still won the race.

This same race had resulted in a double retirement for Mercedes the year prior, as Hamilton and former teammate Nico Rosberg collided on the opening lap while battling for the lead.

For Mercedes, when it rains, it pours. There’s no other way around it. In the last three races in which at least one of their drivers has been forced to retire, the other has finished no higher than seventh place, and the average finish for the higher finisher is just 10.33.

Aside of the 2017 Spanish Grand Prix, only one of the last six races of this variety has featured the higher finisher finished on the podium. That race was the 2016 Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang International Circuit when Rosberg finished in third place after Hamilton was forced to retire with an engine issue.

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There’s no doubt about the fact that Mercedes are the smoothest operation in Formula 1 from top to bottom, and that has been the case for six consecutive seasons, perhaps with no end in sight. But when things go wrong for one of the team’s two drivers in the form of a retirement from a race, it is rare that the other driver is even able to secure a decent result, for one reason or another.

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