Mercedes have found an opening scorer they could barely assess before the season. The harder part is getting enough cars around him to make the return sustainable. Mjon supplied twenty-seven of their thirty-nine Singapore BOTT points; Connor’s response is to keep building a line-up that can share the work.
Our late-entry preview had little official IMS evidence with which to assess mjon and much more reason to trust Connor and Pooldiver’s established D2 partnership. Singapore gave the team three D2 points. Their untested D1 signing supplied seven in his regular division, then twenty more towards BOTT in the fastest field.
Wadz covers D2 while Connor builds the line-up
Well we had a good start but unfortunately had struggles later on into the weekend, we have had a decent driver come in to reserve this weekend of WADZ. But we are a building team so it’s expected that we are going to struggle with constantly getting everyone showing up and getting a full lineup and will have to resort to our fast drivers going up and helping the team
— CONNOROCEConnor is currently marked Not Racing in Spain D2, where Wadz and Pooldiver are entered.
Fourth came from using the race he was given
I think it's clear that the fourth place was not representative of my pace, I had a poor qualifying because I messed up my last couple laps meaning I started 12th, but I was running in an uncontested 9th-10th before my teammate unfortunately crashed which allowed me to get a new set of tyres on, was 9th on the restart then simply took advantage of the chaos in the last two laps with a lot of incidents and in the end a couple cars ahead having track limit penalties got me up to fourth.
— mjonr22Possible crashgate?? His L1 licence also made the finish worth five extra BOTT points, added to the fifteen earned for fourth. The bonus does not change his drivers’ or constructors’ score.
| Appearance | Finish | WDC/WCC points | BOTT points |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | 8 | 7 | 7 |
| D0 | 4 | 15 | 20 |
| Combined | — | 22 | 27 |
The stronger target is in his regular division
The first race had left him looking for more from the car as well as the result:
I think I'll try preparing a little more, wasn't able to get too much practice in for last week, setup wasn't very ideal for D1 which led to a couple changes I made for D0 that definitely helped with race stability, and even with that I feel like I had the pace for a top 3 in D1.
— mjonr22A D1 podium would make a much stronger case for repeatable pace than expecting fourth against the faster field each week. Mjon and OfflineKids are currently entered together in both D1 and D0 again, giving Mercedes another chance to score through the same pair.
Mercedes need the D2 score to join him
The rest of the team supplied twelve Singapore points: nine from Connor’s seventh in D1 and three from Hacko’s revised tenth in D2. Pooldiver’s reported sticking throttle ended his race. The division that gave the preseason squad its clearest foundation therefore supplied its smallest non-zero contribution.
Pooldiver’s attempted repair has yet to be tested:
I hopefully found the problem and fixed it, only need to try it out. Yeah the running before the problem felt good so i was confident. Not really for quali but my race and strat felt so awesome so i think there was much possible
— Pooldiver46His target for Spain is firmer than his verdict on the repair:
I know what i need and with a little help from my rivals i know what i can do on one of my best race pace tracks so there could be some surprise but the aim for me is top 8 minimum
— Pooldiver46Mercedes remain eighth in BOTT, one point behind Audi. Connor’s cover and the effort to get a full line-up therefore have a direct sporting reward to pursue: the D2 cars can join mjon’s score rather than leaving him to find most of the team’s points across two races.
For his part, mjon is keeping the goals tied to the opposition rather than his best Singapore finish.
Catalunya is a really enjoyable track so I think a podium for D1 would be a good goal and try get a top 10 for D0
— mjonr22
▶D0
▶D1
▶D2
