The sprint format that Formula 1 introduced last season meant that the teams had to work against the clock from the first moment they set foot on the circuit, since they only had one hour of free practice on Friday morning to have all set for afternoon qualifying under parc fermé conditions.
For this reason, any mishap can cause the grand prix to go to waste, as could have happened to Mercedes, who in the last round of the session that decided the positions on the grid for the sprint race had two serious accidents.
In the decisive moment of the session, Lewis Hamilton lost control of his W13 at Turn 7, and there was nothing he could do to avoid impacting the protections after crossing the gravel area. The Briton, visibly hurt by his mistake, acknowledged that he was “disappointed with himself” and will have to come back from seventh place in the sprint race.
Something similar happened to his team-mate, George Russell, who also ended up against the wall after his silver arrow went haywire on his attempt in Q3 . As both single-seaters had extensive damage, the German team was forced to work hard to get the cars ready again to roll in the second free practice sessions on Saturday morning, key to preparing for the long runs.
In a statement released by the Brackley team during their own practice session at the Red Bull Ring, they explained what the process was like to get both W13s repaired.
“Good afternoon everyone! It has been a great job since yesterday to prepare the cars, with spare elements and limited working hours (a total of six since the end of qualifying and the start of FP2 “, they said in the ad.
“We have changed to Lewis [Hamilton] the chassis to put the one in the reserve due to the damage in the directions after the accident”, they revealed in Mercedes. “Both cars have different gearboxes than yesterday, within their permitted group, the floors and wings have also been repaired and/or changed.”
“The power units have been thoroughly revised and nothing has been changed. We hope to be running by the middle of the session, if all goes well from here on out”, they assured before finally achieving their objective to be 7th and 9th with Russell and Hamilton respectively.
