Mercedes Formula 1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas hꦏave explained the reasoning behind the team’s sudden drop-off in performance at the United States Grand Prix.

Hamilton beat both Ferrari drivers to pole position in Austin and looked well-placed to score a fifth successive victory at the Circuit of the Americas but could only finish third behind Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen after being forced onto a two-stop strategy due to excess💛ive t✃yre wear.

Mercedes was at a loss to explain its struggles directly after the race b💖ut a combination of problems have since come to light, which Hamil♋ton explained in detail when he addressed the media ahead of this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix.

The Briton revealed a set-up error was made by the team during a frantic rebuild that came after a water pump fault - which affected both cars - was detected just hours before the start of the race 💝last Sunday.🌳  

"They took the car apart and when they put it back together, it was imbalanced, with a massive cross-weight, it was something like 50kg,” Ha🌠milton said.

“So the🐼 right front and the left rear would take all the weight and the car would not turn through the left hand corner💙s.

"It felt very strange out there. It felt like I had a massive tail wind or something when I was going throug♕h 🌼places like Turn 19.

"Through the rig🔴ht-handers 🧸it was a little better, but there are not a lot of right-handers at that track.

“I think if we hadn't had that problem it wꦑould have been a much different race."

Around the same time on Sunday morning Pirelli announce༺d an increase to its rear tyre pressures to combat a change in climatic conditions over the weekend in Austin.

Bottas said the changes added to the multiple issues already f🍨aced by Mercedes which ultimately created a perfect storm of problems that hurt the team’s performance.

“That makes a difference for sure,” Bottas said. “We know that the car wasn’t𒊎 in 100 percent condition in terms of mechanical set-up for the race and also we got caught by the tyre life predictions we had.

“The car wasn’t quite as good to dri🐟ve anymore around the lap compared to qualifying. I think with sub-optimal balance, the tyre wear was higher so that made it more🔥 difficult than it looked. It looked worse than what the actual pure pace could have been with optimum balance.”

And Bottas is anticipating another “challenging” weekend for🦋 Mercedes in꧙ Mexico.

“We know that last year, Red Bull was very competitive, also Ferrari in the qualifying and also in the race, they ♐did ♔have a good race pace,” he explained.

“We know it’s goin🃏g to be a challenge but we ar🌠e definitely up for it.”

It has since emerged that Mercedes also made modifications to its radical wheel rim design ahead of the race in the United States to avoid 🏅any risk of protest from rival teams.

Mercedes sent a written request to the Mexican Grand Prix stewards asking for clarification on the matter on Thursday evening and received the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:all-clear by the FIA to run the wheel rim design - which features cooling holes - at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez this week🐼en꧅d.