“[The W11] is probably the best Merc I’ve ever seen. It just looks so good. In qualifying in Hungary the on-board with Lewis, it shows the steering, it goes right-left. The Ferrari went through right-right-fiddle-left. The Red Bull went right-right-edge it left-left. The Mercedes was beautiful to watch. It’s not their fault.”
Herbert, who won three Grands Prix during his own 12-year career in F1, competed at a time when regulations were far less restrictive.
And he thinks Mercedes’ ability to be so successful under the current rules makes their achievements even more incredible.
“If you compare the rules of today to that McLaren era, you were open and free to do what the hell you wanted,” said Herbert. “Everything was free. It isn’t like that any more. You are so restricted with the rules. They find such small gains which eventually total up to be quite a large chunk of time. That makes it more impressive.
“It’s down to the others to try and catch them up. You can bring in rules to try and stop Mercedes in some way. But I don’t know how you do that because, at the moment, with all the rules moving around they’ve kept on top of it.”
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