While George Russell anticipates a challenging season for Mercedes in Formula 1, Andrew Shovline has attempted to instill some optimism in the driver and teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes wants to disprove George Russell and increase Lewis Hamilton’s and his teammate’s prospects of competing in future Formula 1 races. Russell felt that he might have done better at the Miami Grand Prix after the British team placed sixth and eighth in the standings. The driver, who is 26 years old, does not anticipate winning a race anytime soon. “Right now, we don’t have things right and need to make changes quickly,” he stated after the Miami race. In the near future, we do have a few things planned, but nothing that will make us the race winners.
It will therefore hurt for a few weeks. We have to acknowledge that we are the fourth-fastest team, in my opinion. This is where we are, and I believe we’re competing for the P5-P8 region every week; the lap times and the championship don’t lie.”
Mercedes, though, is hoping to see the results of their labor on the racetrack shortly. With an update scheduled to arrive in Imola later in May and across Miami, they intend to compete with other constructors introducing their own advancements. Following recent attempts to acquire a better picture of the car, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin is anticipating a noticeable improvement over the course of the next four races.
He stated, “We were able to get about half of our update kit to Miami ahead of schedule, and the other half is going to arrive in Imola.” Additionally, we are putting a lot of effort into the next races in an effort to advance them as well. Did everything go according to plan? Yes, everything appears to be producing the floor performance that we had hoped for.
“The problem right now is that everyone else is improving their cars. McLaren, for example, looked like they had advanced with their large package, but it’s difficult to really see all that performance as a clear advancement because of the handling problems the drivers are facing.
We frequently observe that the car behaves fairly differently from session to session, and unless we address this, the advantages of these kinds of improvements will always be muted.
However, following the last few races, we now know exactly what has to be changed to the vehicle to help the drivers handle it a little more comfortably and ensure that it gets where they want it to during those crucial qualification laps.
Additionally, over the course of the following three or four races, there will be a good stream of updates. Though a great deal of labor is being done, perhaps the results will be apparent soon.”
