Norbert Haug: Mercedes GP should unlock its new car’s full potential soon
Mercedes GP’s Norbert Haug recently stated that the team must unlock its new car’s true pace in order to progress in the 2011 Formula 1 season. The results Mercedes GP achieved in the Chinese Grand Prix were rather satisfying for Norbert. However, he was
concerned whether the team could reproduce those results in the future races or not.
The team delivered some promising results during the pre-season testing sessions because of which it was expected that the team would be one of the top running teams of the sport. However, Mercedes GP had a terrible start to the 2011 Formula 1 season as
neither of its two drivers were able to finish the season opening race that took place in Australia.
At the Chinese Grand Prix, it was a completely different story as both of the team’s drivers gave a decent performance and Nico Rosberg even led the race for a few laps. Nico finished in 5th ahead of his teammate Michael Schumacher in 8th
place.
Haug believes that these results portrayed the true image of the new Mercedes GP W02 as the car performed up to the mark for the first time since the beginning of this year’s Formula 1 season.
“I honestly cannot promise you that we will do the same thing in Turkey. But the most important thing is to find the key to unlock the speed. The speed is there. The performance in China was genuine,” he said.
He added that the team’s effort in improving its car was reflected at the Chinese race and this is the direction the team should aim for this year.
“I would have been happier if China would have been the first race, obviously. Saying that, the China track is not a night and day difference from Malaysia. There are a lot of similarities - and straight line performance accounts for a similar amount at
both tracks,” said Norbert.
Nevertheless, the upcoming Formula 1 race is expected to take place in Turkey and the team is hoping to score its first podium there in order to prove that they are still aiming for the top spot, since Haug claims that the team has solved most of its car’s
problems.
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