Shovlin sees two sides of Mercedes' Saturday: 'Still a lot of work to do'

Andrew Shovlin, technical director of the Mercedes F1 team, was not satisfied with Mercedes' Saturday in Miami. The Briton believes the Sprint was disappointing, and acknowledged the amount of work Mercedes will have to carry out to improve.

The Briton began clearly: "The Sprint was disappointing, but we were realistic in our expectations given our grid positions. George lost out because of the first corner incident and couldn't break through the DRS train. Lewis fared better off the line but then spent most of the race battling to get past the Haas of Magnussen." It was all just short of the mark for the Mercedes team, which could have achieved more with a higher starting position, according to Shovlin.

Mercedes' qualifying

The problem the team struggled with a lot was getting the tyres in the right window, said Shovlin: "Going into Qualifying, we modified the set-up slightly and changed our wing level. The car was improved but it was still difficult to land the tyres in the right window. We don't seem to be the only team struggling with that but when we got it right, the pace was strong."

For Mercedes, they are now looking to see where the leak is so they can climb up: "That said, we are well aware that we have a lot of work to do in order to improve the car. If we can do so, that should help us deliver that stronger pace more consistently."