“That was a classic own goal”- Mercedes admits massive blunder done at Silverstone

“That was a classic own goal”- Mercedes admits they made a massive blunder at Silverstone during the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

Mercedes gained massive points from the two races at Silverstone, but the second race over there caught them off guard against Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, where the Dutch secured his first win of 2020.

Speaking on it, Mercedes’ technical director James Allison admitted to Auto Motor und Sport that the team scored a classic own goal during that race.

“We’ve had problems with the rear tyres being too hot in the past few years,” said Allison. “Silverstone is a track where that can easily happen.

“We didn’t do a good job in the second Silverstone race. In the first race we somehow got through, then in the second race, we didn’t pay enough attention to the problems from the first.

“We didn’t take due care when going into a race the tyres were too soft for, and we didn’t set the car up accordingly. We started with the same set-up as we did the first week of Silverstone, and we were hoping for a miracle. That was a classic own goal.” he added.

In the end, that win by Verstappen managed to be only a blip against Mercedes’ Championship aspirations, as from there Lewis Hamilton went onto win multiple races. At the same time, Valtteri Bottas also secured an ample number of points.

Got away with tyre issues in Turkey

Allison then mentioned the incredible performance by Lewis Hamilton in Istanbul, but he gave major credits to tyre settings, which made Mercedes take advantage of others’ predicaments.

“Although we have good systems for warming up the tyres, it wasn’t enough in qualifying on that track that day under those conditions. We were too ill-equipped,” said Allison, with Hamilton and Bottas having been only sixth and ninth fastest respectively in Q3.

“If the race had only lasted 20 laps, we would have been just as hopeless. But our set-up paid off over the length of the race.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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