A problematic pit stop for Mercedes at Imola
The wet track of the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix proved challenging for many teams. But during a pit stop, British driver George Russell experienced a rather unusual pit stop.
Last weekend, Red Bull achieved a double victory with Max Verstappen’s brilliant win and his teammate Sergio Perez securing second place. However, the results were much more mixed for Mercedes.
If former Williams driver George Russell managed to secure a solid fourth place with a more fragile than usual car, Lewis Hamilton had to settle for thirteenth place after being stuck behind Pierre Gasly for the entire second part of the race.
The Head of Trackside Engineering at Mercedes, Andrew Shovlin, explained that these results were closely related to the race conditions. Throughout the entire weekend, we had a car with tires struggling to reach the appropriate temperature, Shovlin lamented in a Youtube video from the team. Going out with slick tires on a wet track is very demanding, and we need to understand why we’re having these temperature issues.
Furthermore, George Russell encountered a rare problem during his pit stop in the race. Andrew Shovlin detailed what happened. When we make an adjustment during a pit stop, we use an electronic gun in which we can program the number of laps needed to adjust the wing […]. The problem we had was that both guns hit the fin of the wing, which is much larger today, causing the guns to reset. Shovlin revealed.
In doing so, George Russell had to manage unusual settings, and on a wet track. As a result of this weekend, Mercedes therefore took third place in the constructors’ standings. For the next Grand Prix in Miami, the W13s are expected to have undergone some improvements.
