The last Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was one of the most controversial in recent years due to the action between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The Dutchman braked abruptly on a straight where you drive at more than 300 km / h, and the Briton hit the Red Bull from behind.
This caused damage to the seven-seater car and, although he won the race, Mercedes investigated how much performance he lost: “The touch caused Lewis to lose more than two tenths, in addition to causing the car to understeer,” said Andrew Sholvin .
The Mercedes engineer continued: “So our estimate is that the total loss was 0.35 seconds, but he was able to get the fastest lap.
The German team also studied the strategy for the Jeddah race , and it was one of the keys to Hamilton’s victory: “We expected Verstappen to lose pace at the end of the race, but the virtual safety car periods helped him. He suffered a lot, and it was not a compound as fast as the hard one, but not only him, but the same thing happened to other drivers, like Ricciardo and Ocon, which allowed Valtteri to overtake them before the finish line”.
Another of the important pieces in the wall of the Germans, James Vowles , explained how the action between Hamilton and Verstappen was: “Red Bull spoke with Michael Masi, and he advised that they return the position. Masi also spoke with Ron Meadows, our director sports at that time.
“When that was happening, Verstappen braked to let Lewis pass, so the problem was that there was no time to warn our driver, he was caught by surprise, he did not expect Max to brake on the straight,” said the strategy director of Mercedes.
The first red flag that Mick Schumacher caused led to the tire dance, and this was Vowles’s opinion: “It made all the sense in the world to stop, unless you thought there was going to be a red flag. That’s gambling, and we’ve done it in the past, when we saw that the damage to the protections was very great, but in Jeddah, it was at the limit”.
“If they hadn’t red-flagged, I’m sure Verstappen could never have gotten close to our drivers and he would have been in trouble, because that medium tire degraded more,” he said.
The weekend in Saudi Arabia was one of the most demanding of the year, as the strategist himself acknowledged: “I’ve been in this sport for about 20 years and last weekend, with qualifying so complicated and such an unpredictable race, full of incidents from start to finish, it was incredibly tense.
When asked about the reaction of team boss Wolff , Vowles joked: “I don’t think any of the helmets Toto has worn this year are with us. The ones he had in Jeddah are in tatters, but they were just earphones. , that shows the passion and emotion he feels, just like the fans do at home. The same thing happens to us on the track, it’s a cluster of emotions, and in his case, the helmets suffered.”
His teammate, Shovlin, on the same subject, said: “We don’t measure our heart rate, but there are points where you feel your heart because of the emotion and intensity. At the start of the race it accelerates, but one of the keys on the wall is that we have to stay calm, because making decisions under pressure is much easier if you think clearly. That way, we can all have relaxed conversations about what to do.”
Mercedes will play for the drivers’ and constructors’ world titles in Abu Dhabi, but they affirm that nothing changes in their preparation: “We face the calendar race by race, you don’t get carried away if you are ahead or behind in the championship. We see ourselves as an independent, to a certain extent, and we have to perform at our best in Abu Dhabi,” Vowles said.
“The only difference is that this is the latest in a sequence that started many months ago, the team is relaxed, everyone I’ve spoken to is in a good mood, and we know we have to put together a car that performs. on the track,” he concluded.
Shovlin, for his part, said: “This is a normal week for us, we have some meetings where we talk about the car and make sure everything is ready. The key is that this title will probably be decided by who wins.” the race”.
“We have to check that the car works in Abu Dhabi, so we’ve been working on the simulator, but that work will continue in free practice to get the set-up right and get Lewis and Valtteri to enjoy a fast car to do the race. pole in qualifying and win the race,” he added.
