The Mercedes F1 drivers' weekend in Brazil was very different depending on the two cars. Indeed, George Russell drove at the front in the rain, in qualifying and in the race, while Lewis Hamilton fought with a car so stiff and bouncy that he compared it to that of Baku 2022.
Andrew Shovlin, director of track engineering, explains that Mercedes failed to get the seven-time world champion to have grip on the rear axle of his W15, particularly given the differences in settings between the two cars. .
“Normally you can do it” assures Shovlin. “We let the drivers deviate with the settings. They don't have to ride the same way, and we let them evolve with their own settings. And when one of them seems to be doing well, we often take elements of these settings, or even all of them, and we apply them to the other car.”
“Now it's fair to say that Lewis was mainly struggling with a lack of rear grip. If we look at how he set up his car, it's not clear where that was coming from.”
“But in a sprint race, as soon as you have less grip and you feel the effects of oversteer coming out of corners, you generate more temperature. That in itself prolongs the problem.”
“As with any race, we spend a lot of time digging into the data, trying to understand it, and Lewis' engineering team will be working with him on that, trying to make sure we figure it out. before Vegas.”
Shovlin explains that lack of preparation for all conditions may have compounded Hamilton's difficulties: “The other factor of the weekend is that the conditions were very different. Qualifying and the Sprint race took place in the dry, it was very hot, while the main qualifying and the Grand Prix took place in the wet .”
“We didn't have the pace of the sessions to evolve the settings and understand how to get the most out of the car. That's not the reason for the problem, but it's certainly something that made it more difficult for him to get the settings he wanted for the race.”
