Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin: “We’ve still got plenty of issues to work on”

Andrew Shovlin admits the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team still have ‘plenty of issues’ to work on ahead of the start of the season after a less than straightforward day two of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday.

Lewis Hamilton was only able to complete forty laps during the morning session as he struggled with the balance of his W13, while the team also experienced a data logging issue that restricted his running.

George Russell took over the driving duties in the afternoon and enjoyed a much more productive session as he ran sixty-six laps, and his best time saw him place fourth fastest for a second consecutive day.

However, Shovlin, the Trackside Engineering Director at Mercedes, admits the team are on the back foot at this stage of pre-season, with the performance aspect of the W13 not as strong as they would like.  He knows however, it is early days and they still have time to make the car more competitive.

“We had a difficult morning with Lewis, experiencing a data logging issue that delayed our start and in general, we were struggling a bit more with the balance,” said Shovlin.  “Some of that may have been setup items that we were trying and some of it the harder tyres that we were running today.

“We managed to get a few runs completed then unfortunately had a sensor issue that prevented us doing further performance work so we stopped early for lunch in order to fix it.

“George had a more productive session in the afternoon and we got through some useful setup scans and completed some of our tyre programme. We’ve still got plenty of issues to work on from a performance point of view but we are continuing to learn with every run which in turn will make us faster.

“We’ve got a busy day planned for tomorrow, plenty more setup work and a first look at some of the softer rubber compounds for this year.”

George Russell ended fourth fastest on Thursday – Credit: Wolfgang Wilhelm