Last weekend, George Russell put in a solid performance to clinch fourth place in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, as the Mercedes W13 didn’t seem to be able to play that high in the rankings. His teammate, Lewis Hamiltonfinished in an anonymous 13th place following being stuck in a DRS train during the second half of the race.
So where is the level of this car really? The performances of the two drivers may not be representative of the true potential of the W13. In a video posted on Mercedes’ YouTube channel, track engineering director Andrew Shovlin explains that Imola’s disappointing result was partly due to the particular racing conditions. “All weekend, we had a car that was struggling to get the tires up to temperature”explains the Briton.
“Going out on a soaked track with slick tires is very demanding, and we need to understand why we have these warm-up issues. We know from previous races where the conditions were similar that Lewis excels in these situations. He’s very strong in changing conditions, but as I said we have a problem with this car, it’s very difficult to generate heat, and we need to fix that before we get into situations where we we can make strategic bets.”
The tire temperature rise cost Mercedes dearly, as Friday qualifying (which defined the grid for the sprint) took place in the rain. In this exercise, the Etoile drivers were eliminated in Q2, and Hamilton even escaped elimination in Q3 by only four thousandths. On Sunday, the day following a sprint contested on a dry track, the rain was back for the Grand Prix.
As the laps went by, the asphalt dried up and the drivers put on their slick tires following a third of the race. Passing through the pits, the mechanics of the various teams were also able to adjust the angle of the front wing flaps, in order to increase downforce in these tricky conditions. But not at George Russell. During his tire change, the mechanics in charge of adjusting the front wing leaned over the car… without modifying the settings. The problem came from the guns, as Shovlin explains.
“When we adjust during a stop, we use an electronic gun in which we can program the number of turns necessary to adjust the aileron”shares the engineer. “We have to do this because today the stops have become so fast that we can no longer make adjustments manually, like when the mechanics were counting the number of revolutions on the front wing.
Unfortunately for Mercedes, the team suffered a rare problem with its guns. “The problem we had was that both guns hit the fin fins, which are much bigger today, and that caused the guns to reset. Nothing really broke. , it was one of those issues that comes with the changes made to the car. It never happened to us in free practice, when we practice for pit stops. The result was that George had to realize his relay with a much less loaded aileron setting compared to what we usually use in wet conditions.”
Fourth less than eight seconds from the podium, Russell might have had a shot at the top three, two weeks following his first podium of the season in Melbourne.
