Ian Parkes
Thursday, September 16, 2021 8:29 AM – Updated: 9:10 AM
Andrew Shovlin, Head of Mercedes Track Engineering, hopes the team can rediscover their clean weekend mojo after a series of “pretty chaotic races”.
In an era when Mercedes one-two victories fell by the wayside, it has been 18 Grand Prix since the team last saw such a result from drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
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This season in particular was littered with problems with one or the other car, combined with atypical errors from the pit wall. Nevertheless, the team leads the constructors’ championship with an 18-point lead over Red Bull.
Shovlin is now hoping the Russian Grand Prix will bring some normalcy to the team at a Sochi Autodrom circuit, where it has taken four one-two victories in the last six seasons of the turbo-hybrid era.
“We just have to make sure we put together a good weekend in Russia,” said Shovlin. “It’s a place where the car should be competitive.
“We’ve had pretty chaotic races for a while and really, the team doesn’t need to be distracted and just focus on doing what we know we can and the performance we need, to win these championships. ”
The Italian Grand Prix weekend was one of Shovlin’s particular frustrations that included changing the engine for Bottas, Hamilton’s slow start in sprint qualifying, and then a crash with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the Grand Prix.
“It’s pretty much manageable,” added Shovlin. “We had a car that should have finished first and second and we didn’t score that many points.
“I think we have to be pretty critical with ourselves. With Valtteri, we certainly denied him the chance to win the race.
“He’s been brilliant all weekend and it was impressive to start from behind to get to third place.
“There are certainly things we could have improved about Lewis and the start of Sprint Qualifying cost him quite a bit.
“As is so often the case, we walk away with a to-do list of things we need to get better at because we can do better than we did recently.”
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