Mercedes had several hindrances in Imola that impacted their race. The Brackley-based outfit lost precious time after a slow pit-stop.
Initially, things were working in the favour of the seven-time world champions as Lewis Hamilton took pole. But, that did not last long after Max Verstappen managed to overtake him early in the race. Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas started in 8th place but his race came to an end after a massive crash with Williams’ George Russell.
Hamilton had another hiccup after he veered off track and lost his position. But he managed to fight back and come up to P2. The Silver Arrows have taken all these incidents into consideration and will try to learn from them.
Mercedes race engineer Andrew Shovlin revealed the factors that have impacted their performance.
“Well its fair to say we are not the best. We are losing time in the pit stops, and it’s an area that we have been focusing on for a while. In particular though in Lewis’s stop, we did have an issue with one of the pit stop guns,” he said.
“For the next stop we actually changed to a different gun and that did seem to resolve that issue and also we had a short hold. We had to hold for four tenths of a second, because Giovinazzi was coming down the pit lane just at the point that Lewis was ready to go.
“As I said there was some specific instances that affected us in the race in Imola and we will look to work on those, but long-term we are still looking at what we can do with the crew, with equipment trying to find a bit more time in the stops.”
Russell’s crash with Bottas was another incident that impacted Mercedes’ performance. Toto Wolff was highly critical of the entire incident.
“The whole situation should have never happened. Valtteri had a bad first 30 laps, and shouldn’t have been there. But George should have never launched into this maneuver, considering that the track was drying up,” he said.
In the end, Mercedes was happy that Hamilton finished the race in P2. They hope to improve their performance at the upcoming race at Portugal.
Do you think Hamilton will reclaim P1 in the next race of the championship? Let us know in the comments below!
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