slipstream.
I'm not sure and Pelle was with the Ferrari not a Mercedes SL.
Slipstream, gearing, tire pressures and sometimes a poorly calibrated or faulty throttle pedal can all affect top speed.
I could hit 163mph out of tow and well over 170 when in a tow..
You may have simply had your gears too long or short to generate the power where you needed it
My race was great fun at first, 3 laps of solid battling with Pelle and Axel. Pelle was the first to fall off when he was slightly too cautious behind Axel on those horrible right handers at the end of the lap.
Axel had a massive tank slapper through Eau Rouge on about the 4th lap allowing me to get into first again - then I missed my apex slightly and drifted off the track about 3 corners later, rejoining a few hundred meters behind Axel.
I felt I had the faster car and was looking forward to seeing if I could chase him back down before the end of the race - only he disco'd before the lap was out
I just hotlapped from then on to see how fast I could go. This resulted in the odd accident as it always does at Spa.
I decided to do a stop and go anyway despite there being no need and must have wasted an extra 5 or 10 seconds slowing the last 10mph to a standstill!
Trying to come to a stop in a pitbox on a big hill is impossible in one of these things!
I'm certain there's a lot more time to come in the Masser as I can't say it handled very well in the race - Although I had dialed a lot of it out, I was still suffering badly from understeer which definitely made some of the fast sections a challenge.