Mercedes, Shovlin: “We started the season well, but the others are catching up”

Mercedes, trio of victories In the first three race weekends, Mercedes left the competition with the misery of a few placings, and only at Suzuka did they miss out on the podium, also due to unfortunate circumstances that affected George Russell’s race. The #63 stopped just before the entry of the Safety Car (sent on track for Oliver Bearman’s accident), unfortunate timing which instead rewarded Kimi Antonelli. Furthermore, the Briton had energy management problems which favored the overtaking of the two Ferraris: that of Lewis Hamilton just after the restart (28th lap), that of Charles Leclerc at the Spoon, ten laps later. Mercedes, through the head of track engineers Andrew Shovlin, commented on the episodes that complicated Russell’s race. Shovlin’s words “If we had stopped George a lap later, he would have kept the lead on the restart,” commented Shovlin. “Instead he slipped to P3 and lost a further position to Lewis as he reached his energy recovery limit too early in the lap and didn’t have enough battery for the restart. Then he was faced with another frustrating problem: a bug in the software code, triggered by simultaneously pressing a button and changing gear, caused the power unit to go into super clipping and charge the battery, thus allowing Charles to get through.” “Clearly, there are a lot of things we need to work on and understand in the coming weeks. We’ve started the season great, but our rivals are closing in,” warned the Briton. “Fortunately, we have plenty of room for improvement and we will make the most of the break to improve in the areas where we are less strong.”