Mercedes may have managed to secure a podium in Baku, but this was largely due to a crash in the final laps of the race which took Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez out of the running. Luckily for Mercedes, this pushed George Russell from P5 to P3. Since the summer break ended, Mercedes have had to accept more disappointing results than their wins in Austria, Great Britain and The Netherlands. Hoping to change their fate, Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin shares the details of a major update package is coming soon.
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Shovlin on Russell’s podium in Baku
For the majority of the race it appeared that Mercedes would have to accept finshing outside of the podium. There was no celebration at the team after finishing in the top-three either, Shovlin confirmed: “Well, we weren’t really popping the champagne and doing cartwheels. We knew that we weren’t strong enough to get the podium on merit.”
The Brit continued: “The second stint of the race was a lot better for us. The first stint was really the one that let us down. Now, you know, nice to get a podium. Good to see that no one was hurt in that incident. It was quite a scary incident given the straight that it was on and the fact that everyone was still racing around it. But as I said, we know that we’ve got work to do. We’d rather come away with a P3 than a P5, but had it not been for that, we would have finished P5 and we aspire to do better.”
Big upgrades to come in Austin
While Mercedes were were victorious in three of the last four races before the summer break, things have slowed down since the return to racing. Lewis Hamilton scored eighth at Zandvoort, fifth at Monza and in Baku he only managed to finish in ninth. Russell has not achieved any remarkable results since the summer break either. Besides his lucky P3 in Baku, he finished seventh in both Zandvoort and Monza.
However, Shovlin has good news for the Mercedes drivers and fans: “Well as you know the spec of the car is always evolving, we’re always trying to bring performance every race. But, at the moment our main focus is on bringing a bigger package to Austin, then we get into the final six races of the year and there will be smaller things beyond that but that’s certainly what we’re working for at the moment is a bigger update to the car at the Austin race.”
This article was written in collaboration with Cas van de Kleut.
