“It just sums up their car” - Martin Brundle’s worrying Mercedes assessment after Miami

Martin Brundle believes the unpredictable nature of this year’s Mercedes W14 is the team’s biggest issue despite being well beaten by customer team McLaren at the Miami Grand Prix.

Mercedes endured another lacklustre weekend in Miami as they finished sixth and eighth.

Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a strong second half of the race to finish just 16 seconds off the lead, pressuring Red Bull’s Sergio Perez for most of it.

However, Hamilton’s race was juxtaposed to Lando Norris taking McLaren’s first win of the season.

McLaren currently run Mercedes engines, highlighting the stark difference between the two teams on the chassis side.

Assessing Mercedes’ performance in Miami, Brundle said that they have “got more to worry about than McLaren” when he was posed the question of them being beaten by a customer outfit.

“Well I mean obviously yes it’s a customer team that are doing a better job,” he said.

“I think they’ve got more to worry about than McLaren at the moment. They just don’t understand their car.”

Mercedes continue to struggle with the unpredictability of their car.

In sprint qualifying, both drivers failed to make it out of SQ2, while in conventional qualifying, Hamilton looked to be a contender for pole before the pole position shootout.

It was a similar story in the race as Hamilton looked off the pace compared to the top group before looking quicker than Perez in the closing laps.

Brundle was frank in saying that Hamilton’s impressive pace at the end just ‘summed’ up Mercedes currently.

“Having said that, Lewis Hamilton had a great race,” he added. “He did some very brave manoeuvres and overtakes. 

“His pace was good towards the end. It just sums up their car. Session to session, day to day, race to race, they don’t know what they’re going to get with it.”