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Mercedes working on improving race starts

Utkarsh Bhatla
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Mercedes have been hit hard by the lack of pace at the start of the race, as Vettel was comfortably able to get past Hamilton as the race started in Silverstone.

Mercedes have been better in qualifying, but their qualifying exploits have been rubbished by some poor starts and they are extremely focussed on setting that problem straight.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineer has confirmed that Mercedes are doing all that they can in order to improve on their starts.

“We are doing a lot of work here this week trying to understand that, because we know fine well that if we qualify on pole we have got to get off the line as well as the Ferraris and that is what we will be trying to do in Hockenheim,” he said.

“In Silverstone we got some wheelspin. There was a bit less grip on the grid than we were expecting.

“We had done practice starts there and at Silverstone they do actually allow you do a start from the grid.

“But for some reason on Sunday we didn’t quite have what we expected and as soon as you get the wheelspin you lose traction and that lost him places quickly.” he added.

Shovlin also admitted that Hamilton was lucky to get away without any serious damage to the car after that Raikkonen tap.

Hamilton’s issues initially were mainly triggered due to the ‘dirty air’ from cars in front of him and not due to any issues because of impact.

“We didn’t have much damage at all,” said Shovlin.

“It was quite a big impact and we were pretty lucky to get away with it.

“The reality though was that you heard Lewis complaining about damage to his floor.

“We thought that there might have been some aerodynamic damage but that was just from running in the turbulent air of all those cars ahead when he was having to fight through.

“It was only when he got into clear air, and he could feel what the car was like and we could see his pace, that we were able to really understand that the damage was very, very minimal.” he concluded.

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