Mercedes is ready to make use of the ultimate Formulation 1 races of the season to realize additional understanding of its weaknesses, having accepted it should end fourth within the constructors’ standings.
The Silver Arrows displayed a flip in fortunes mid-season and after a winless 2023 picked up three race victories in the course of the summer season.
George Russell capitalised on contact between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris to win in Austria, earlier than Lewis Hamilton took two race wins in Britain and Belgium, however the staff has did not proceed that kind into the top of the marketing campaign.
Though Russell initially led early within the moist situations at Interlagos final day trip, he fell to fourth after pitting earlier than the pink flag to increase a run of races with no podium relationship again to the September’s Azerbaijan GP, when Russell inherited third after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez’s late tangle.
With the hole to Purple Bull in third now 162 factors, and having seen its struggles lie in comparable areas because the daybreak of the ground-effect period, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insisted the staff would now deal with the way to get on high of these points for 2025 and the ultimate 12 months of the present rule cycle.
“The primary factor by way of studying is that the corners that we’re weak in are nonetheless the identical ones. It’s the interconnected, gradual corners. That’s usually the place we journey up,” defined Shovlin.
Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15, George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15
Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Photographs
“Going into the weekend, we definitely had sector two in Brazil, which has a number of these corners, on our radar as an space that we would wrestle.
“The large focus in these remaining races for us is studying what we are able to. We’re ready within the championship the place we can not problem in entrance of us. It is extremely unlikely we’re going to see any problem from behind.
“Our focus has very a lot shifted to studying what we have to this 12 months to use to subsequent 12 months with the intention to get on high of these points.”
Regardless of its struggles within the rain in the course of the Brazilian weekend, Shovlin pointed to the benefits of with the ability to run the automotive within the moist as a part of its studying course of forward of the brand new marketing campaign.
“In Brazil, it was helpful having that moist working since you need to get a learn on the automotive within the moist,” he added. “There’s all the time just a few moist quali and race classes over the 12 months. It was reassuring to see that the tempo in these situations was respectable.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director, Mercedes-AMG F1 Group, on the pit wall
Picture by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Photographs
“However we’re going to be taking a look at all of the remaining tracks to evaluate efficiency and simply verify what we perceive about this automotive and whether or not the adjustments we hope to make for subsequent 12 months are going to enhance these areas.”
On the precise traits that may be reviewed, Shovlin mentioned: “Vegas has a number of straight line and low-speed corners. Qatar is a quicker monitor after which, ending in Abu Dhabi, which is a mixture of every thing, it should give us an excellent learn on how we’re performing and who’s the benchmark.
“Typically it’s Purple Bull, typically McLaren, typically Ferrari, however it should enable us to ascertain the hole that we have to shut down over these winter months.”
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