The weekend for the Mercedes team at the 2022 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix was a see-saw of emotions as they landed at the Red Bull Ring having upgraded their W13 to levels that brought them closer to two leading teams in the season. However, in Friday’s qualifying due to the sprint format, its two drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, had separate crashes against the protections that compromised their hopes.
Due to the crashes against the wall in their attempts in Q3, they were forced to start from fifth place with the youngest of the duo and from ninth with the seven-time world champion, but that did not prevent them from gradually They came back and at the end of Sunday’s appointment they climbed on the podium with Hamilton, in addition to which Russell also added fourth position.
Until they got there, though, the Silver Arrows had to work hard in the garage to repair their injured cars in qualifying. The team’s technical director, Mike Elliott , revealed what those tense moments were like in the German box before going out to the sprint race, where they worked tirelessly: “When two cars crash, there’s always going to be an end of very difficult week from there”.
“We damaged the cars quite a bit, we broke both floors, the two rear wings, the suspension was damaged, on Lewis [Hamilton’s] car we also had the front wing damaged, and we repaired the chassis,” he explained. “There were things we could fix and things we couldn’t in a weekend, so we had to completely rebuild his car from scratch.
“We had a full spare bottom that we could mount, and we had to make the best of the two damaged ones to build another one, so we compromised on George [Russell’s] rear wing because we only had one extra rear wing that we decided to give Lewis, that he had to come back,” Elliott said.
Mercedes’ decision tried to maximize the result of both vehicles, so Russell’s race was affected, although reviewing the results after the dispute at the appointment, it was the best they could do.
“Having rebuilt the cars we also had to adjust the setup again, there was very little time in FP2 and as both cars were so badly damaged the drivers were conditioned in the sprint that decided Sunday’s positions in FP2. output, so you have to take all of that into account,” continued the British engineer.
Mercedes collected good points to consolidate its third position in the constructors’ general standings, 27 with the podium for Hamilton and fourth place for Russell, but there is a story behind it that shows the competitive spirit of the Brackley team. The Silver Arrows managed to repair their two W13s before Free Practice 2 after hard hours in the garage, as the seven-time champion revealed after uncorking the champagne, and it was something that Elliott reaffirmed.
“We managed to get George out within 5 minutes of FP2 and with Lewis we were halfway through the track session,” said the Englishman. “There was a lot of work to get the cars ready, and in Hamilton’s case, there was so much damage to the chassis that we couldn’t fix it, so we had to build his car from scratch on Saturday morning.
“A few years ago we were allowed to have a reserve car, but the rules were changed so that you can only have two cars in each race, and you can only have one spare chassis,” Elliott said. “We had to assemble the engine, gearbox, suspension, all the systems that bolt around the chassis and so on, and the mechanics managed to do it in three and a half hours on Saturday morning, an incredible achievement. And I have to give them all the credit.”
