Mercedes head of engineering Andrew Shovlin admits that the team needs to address a lot of issues to improve the W13’s performance.
Leading up to the first race of the season, expectations were not high in the Mercedes camp. They had an underwhelming pre-season, which many people thought was them ‘sandbagging’.
In the first race of the year however, they showed that they did lack in pace compared to Red Bull and Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton qualified P5, whereas George Russell started the race in ninth.
In the race, both drivers spent majority of the time behind the top 4 drivers and a podium was no where in sight. However, a late race engine issue for both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez promoted Hamilton to a third place finish. Russell followed his teammate to finish P4.
Despite the podium, the Silver Arrows know that they aren’t anywhere near the top 2 teams in terms of performance. Ahead of the Saudi Arabian GP this weekend, Shovlin admitted that they have a lot of issues to address.
“From a championship point of view third and fourth is good because from a car based point of view fifth or sixth is what we deserved,” he said to the F1 nation podcast.
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A lot of everything is wrong with the Mercedes W13 at the moment, says Shovlin
When talking about what exactly the Brackley based team was lacking, Shovlin replied with an answer that would worry all Mercedes fans. The Brit said that there’s something wrong with ‘everything’ in the car.
“We’ve got a lot to do with car performance,” he said. “We need to get on that really quickly, but that may not happen overnight.
“And while we are not quick enough in terms of the championship situation we need to not be hemorrhaging points. “So for the championship this was a bit of a let-off.
“We just did a de-brief with the drivers and there is a lot of everything wrong,” Shovlin continued.
“There’s bouncing, the balance is poor, there is a lack of low-speed grip, we’re struggling on traction, the drivability could be better, the tyre warm-up is not good enough, the car is a bit on the heavy side.
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