Mercedes will look to adapt its processes to keep away from a repeat of George Russell’s disqualification within the Belgian Grand Prix, after revealing its vehicles had been inside 500 grams of one another beginning the race.
Russell was disqualified for his automotive being 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lbs) underweight after profitable Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps, having pulled off an initially unplanned one-stop technique to run lengthy to the tip. Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reiterated that extreme tire put on was a possible contributing issue, however that it was solely a problem on Russell’s automotive.
“It was clearly very disappointing and unlucky, significantly after he had pushed such a robust race to win from to this point again,” Shovlin stated. “We are attempting to know precisely what occurred.
“Lots of that includes us getting the weights of all of the totally different parts. The automotive can lose numerous weight throughout the race. You get tire put on, plank put on, brake put on, oil consumption. The driving force themselves can lose lots, and on this explicit race George misplaced fairly a little bit of weight.
“The vehicles began the race the identical weight. Lewis [Hamilton] and George had been each weighed after qualifying. The vehicles had been inside 500 grams. George’s automotive was the one one which had the issue, and it’s as a result of issues just like the tire put on was a lot larger. It appears to be like like we misplaced extra materials on the plank. We are going to acquire all that information, have a look at how we will refine our processes as a result of clearly, we don’t need that to occur sooner or later.”
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Shovlin accepts the lack of weight would have had an influence on Russell’s general race time, albeit measured in extraordinarily small portions.
“By way of tempo at the beginning of the race it’s nil as a result of George’s automotive and Lewis’ automotive begin the race on the identical weight. Clearly, as George’s automotive was dropping pounds quicker than Lewis’ all through the race, there’s an related achieve with that.
“However you might be into the hundredths of a second per lap. It is going to be very small as a result of if you end up speaking about quantities like one or two kilos, they don’t quantity to numerous lap time. However as I stated, at the beginning of the race the vehicles had been the identical weight.”
With Hamilton inheriting the victory having initially completed second, Shovlin says there are clear positives that Mercedes is making an attempt to concentrate on because of its efficiency in Belgium, regardless of the frustration of shedding a one-two.
“It was very a lot a bittersweet second. It was a improbable end to the race. To get the vehicles dwelling 1-2 was an actual achievement, significantly as a result of we had had such a tough Friday. However general, apart from the frustration, the workforce is absolutely inspired by the efficiency. It was an ideal turnaround by the engineering workforce to get the automotive sorted out to carry out so effectively within the race.
“It was additionally encouraging for us as scorching circuits haven’t been our power this 12 months. The observe was fairly scorching there in Belgium and we had been capable of carry out very well, significantly on the long term. George clearly did one of many longest stints of anybody. Loads of positives for certain, and only a disgrace that we couldn’t preserve the outcome.”
