At the beginning of the year, the Mercedes it had never been at the levels of the top teams. In the very first races, Max seemed unbeatable, with McLaren and Ferrari too distant in terms of pace. Then the turning point. A new front wing brought to Monaco it brought the W15 back to life, and the drivers began to achieve results. The victory (due to the Verstappen-Norris contact) in Austria, and those deserved to Silverstone and from Spa. Second Andrew Shovlin, trackside engineering director at Mercedes, the gap has not yet been closed and there is still so much to do.
Shovlin speaks: "Mercedes not at the level of others in rear-limited"
In an interview, Shovlin confirmed the progress made since the beginning of the season, but stated that there are still some weak points on the Mercedes. For example, the W15 suffers a lot rear-limited circuits, something that will have to be fixed by the engineers in Brackley: "The circuits where we suffer the most are the rear-limited ones, especially in situations where it is very hot. If we struggled in Spielberg, in Budapest the gap was smaller. This leads us to think we have made a big leap forward in terms of performance. If we then take Silverstone into consideration we were very competitive. I think all the teams are trying to develop their own car. If you don't do it even for just a weekend, you're left behind because we're all working at an exhausting pace. Speaking of wind tunnel, we can't predict the step increase too much, we see at most six weeks into the future".
“Front wing expected during the season, it allowed us to work more”
What Mercedes benefited most according to Shovlin is the front wing brought to Munich. This, in fact, allowed the whole team to work better and be able to develop more: "The Munich winger was expected during the season. Since we mounted it on George's car we realized that the car could be improved even more. From that moment, on every track there was something new. If we look at the first seasonal races, the car changed its behavior even for minimal variations in track conditions. Once these problems were solved, everything became easier”.
Source statements: FormulaPassion
