Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team Race Engineer Andrew Shovlin has nothing but praise for Lewis Hamilton after he topped qualifying for the sprint race at the British Grand Prix, leading the way the first for him since the Spanish Grand Prix.
Qualifying has been hard for the team to obtain in recent weeks but they’ll be glad that they’re sitting at the front of the pack for Saturday’s sprint race. Although the fastest in qualifying doesn’t get the official title as pole sitter, Shovlin is still glad that his team was the fastest.
“Well done to Lewis on another pole position; they haven’t been easy to come by this year but it was a solid job throughout and a relief that his first lap in the final session was enough to secure the top spot.” said Shovlin.
“Our morning was focused on learning; there’s simply too much work to fit into one hour but we managed to do a decent mix of long run and single lap work.”
In Friday’s solo practice session, Mercedes didn’t seem to have the pace to match Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen but after looking at the data, they were able to make sure the car was geared up to be competitive.
“Our single lap pace was uninspiring in Practice but we managed to find a direction to improve grip and balance going into Qualifying which showed in the timesheets.
“Valtteri’s final run was a good lap but compromised by being first car out; we’ll review our timing on that as we could have potentially secured the front row had we found him a car in front. Overall, the pace was strong from both cars and that’s reassuring given that we’ve had a tough time in recent qualifying sessions.”
