Valtteri Bottas believes improvements to the Mercedes car, not the Pirelli tyres, is the reason for their dominance in 2019.
As Lewis Hamilton controversially maintained the German manufacturer’s 100 per cent win record this season in Canada, off the track Red Bull caused a stir by suggesting some kind of collusion between the team and Pirelli.
This is because of a decision by the Italian supplier to use a thinner tread on their tyres at all races, something that has left teams scratching their heads as to how to optimise the performance, well except one.
“It’s quite difficult to say if it [the performance] is up to the tyres,” Bottas told Crash.net.
“We always still feel after each race that there is still something better we could have done with the tyres, even though most of the races we have been able to make the most out of them.
“To get the tyres perfect in qualifying and the race is extremely difficult still. So I wouldn’t just put it down to tyres, the car itself, the suspension, is a little bit better as well in slow speed.”
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It is true that the Mercedes chassis has been a class above the rest this year, as proven by their performance in Barcelona and Monaco.
Yet even this raised the suspicions of Red Bull, with Helmut Marko suggesting it was funny how the Brackley team knew to change philosophy and optimise downforce.
However, another explanation has been that Mercedes has simply addressed their weaknesses realising that Ferrari was now the benchmark in engine performance.
“It is clearly a big improvement on last year or the year before, where we definitely saw that in some of the slow speed corners we were not the best but now we’ve made huge steps,” Bottas said.
“Definitely the front-end of the car is much better on entry, mid-corner phase, which then means you can brake a little bit letter and rely on the front to get the car turned and positioned well for the exit.
“Compared to last year the car is feeling much more like it’s actually going where you want it to go. That’s obviously a good feeling.
“It’s one of the improvements, but I can’t say there’s just one big thing compared to last year’s car. I think it’s everything overall.”