Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin has spoken positively of the team’s performance in the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring this weekend.
The team secured a double podium, Lewis Hamilton taking victory, and 26 points for the fastest lap of the race, and team-mate Valtteri Bottas in third.
“It’s great to finish this first triple-header with a third win and be able to further extend our lead in the Championships,” said Shovlin.
“Lewis put in another masterclass, he was able to control the race from start to finish and build enough of a gap to give us some margin to cover the uncertain weather and any risk of Safety Cars.
“Valtteri had a busy afternoon. He nearly went before the lights but pulled the clutch and managed to avoid a jump start. However, that cost him a load of time and he was down in seventh exiting Turn 1.”
Shovlin went on to say that the team saw a shower was slowly moving towards the circuit; they decided that Bottas should pit early, before the rain started to fall, and in doing so were able to get ahead of BWT Racing Point Formula One Team’s Lance Stroll, making up some of the positions he had lost at the start.
“Valtteri did a good job passing Charles and both Haas cars on track but by mid-race, the talk on the pitwall was all about the weather.
“We could see a shower moving towards us very slowly, but it looked like it would be short-lived and not heavy enough to take us to Intermediates.
“With Valtteri, we used it as the opportunity to undercut Lance by putting him on fresh tyres just before the rain started to fall. That worked nicely and he quickly was able to start closing down Max [Verstappen].”
“The car has been really strong all weekend, good in the corners and on the straights and it’s run here without any reliability concerns,” he concluded.
