“We were not good with the brakes at turn 1”: Mercedes explain how Max Verstappen easily jumped them on the first lap of the Mexican Grand Prix

Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin says that his drivers were not brave enough with the brakes going into the first corner during Sunday’s race.

Andrew Shovlin is the Head of Trackside Engineering at the Brackley based team. He, like the rest of his team, expressed disappointment at how the race started on  Sunday. Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton started from the first row giving Mercedes their first front row lockout of the season.

However, it was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who took the lead at the very first corner of lap 1. After the race, Shovlin said that the entire team feared that this may happen.

Also read: Mercedes boss unhappy with his driver’s effort to block Max Verstappen in the first lap of the Mexican GP

“It’s a very long run,” he said. “Of all the circuits where you can get a front-row lockout, we were worried about all the things that might go wrong at the start.”

“The drivers talk about how they can choreograph themselves. But the reality is, once the lights go out, it’s very difficult to to stick to your plan. It’s never quite as you might imagine,” he explained.

Lewis Hamilton getting a better start than Valtteri Bottas proved to be costly to Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton got a better start than his teammate on Sunday. That was a disadvantage for the Silver Arrows because it meant that the Briton could not slide behind Bottas’ car to defend Verstappen at the start. The Red Bull driver took advantage of this and went around the outside, braking late, and jumping both Mercedes cars.

“It was almost unfortunate for us that Lewis got a better jump than Valtteri. None of the actual launches were bad at all. But Lewis got a good jump and that put him alongside. So he was then unable to tail off Valtteri.” said Shovlin

“Obviously, if you’re watching from an overhead shot, it’s very easy to look at what they could have done differently to prevent Max having that opening on the left side.”

“I don’t think we’re as good as them braking for Turn 1, Max does a very good job of that. That was another area where we were a bit weak, we weren’t able to brake deep enough.”

Red Bull are now just 1 point behind Mercedes in the Constructor’s Championship standings with 4 races to go.

Also read: Valtteri Bottas points finger at Daniel Ricciardo after a disastrous Mexican GP for the Mercedes driver