Mercedes chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin believes the Canadian Grand Prix, which is scheduled for next weekend, will present a more serious challenge for the team than the breakout race in Barcelona.
The stars achieved surprisingly good results at the Spanish Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton finished second and George Russell third. Although they easily pushed their defeated opponents back, race winner Max Verstappen built a serious advantage over them: the Dutchman finished 24 seconds ahead of Hamilton.
An important “development” of the team is that, thanks to the double podium, they took second place from Aston Martin in the standings of automakers. Seeing their momentum and the usefulness of the improvements, many feel they can easily maintain this for the remaining competitions.
However, Mercedes is being careful. Despite their self-confidence and innovation, Andrew Shovlin noted that next week’s Canadian Grand Prix, for example, would certainly present them with a more serious challenge than Barcelona, as the track requires low power, which is in stark contrast to the Spanish one, which suits their car. In any case.
“In fact, the development package works very well on tracks like Barcelona, where it is important to perform well in the fast sections. – said the specialist in a video interview prepared by the team.
“We were better on the faster tracks and in the end we managed to balance very well and our racing pace was also strong. Now, where we’re going next week, Montreal, the track there is very different. There are more low-speed turns, and you often have to accelerate in the straight. “We expect it to be more of a challenge.” to her.
“We don’t expect to be in Red Bull’s corner in the race. We know that Canada will probably present us with a more serious challenge than (the challenge) at the weekend in Barcelona” – highlighted.
The specialist predicts that Mercedes will be back among the chasers during the Canadian weekend, which means that they will once again have to engage in a serious battle with Ferrari and Aston Martin, moreover, he does not consider it impossible that Alpine will also join them – at least Esteban Ocon on the podium Coronation in Monaco based on position.
“We think it will be more like the previous races where we were clearly in the same group with Ferrari and Aston Martin. Alpine seems to have joined this group. There are some big battles here. It’s going to be fun and we’ll be fighting to find every little performance we can. Also It is in the network, we can be second and tenth. It just depends on a few tenths.” He finished his thought.
George Russell and Esteban Ocon (Photo: XPB)
