F1 News
Mercedes agrees wrong choice: 'We were overly optimistic'
- GPblog.com
Mercedes hoped to compete for the world title again this year after last season's title battle with Max Verstappen, but the German racing stable has failed to do so. With the new regulations, Toto Wolff's team could not manage to stay at the top, forcing it to take a step back. However, Andrew Shovlin is confident that Mercedes will soon be able to improve, he told Motorsportweek.com.
At the beginning of the season, Mercedes suffered a lot of porpoising, which was to the detriment of the car's performance. It also fell short in other ways. "It has been a very interesting journey. I think we were overly optimistic in where we thought we could run the car," Shovlin commented.
However, the Mercedes top man saw how Lewis Hamilton and George Russell often managed to take full advantage of Red Bull Racing and Ferrari's mistakes. It resulted in the British drivers often managing to reach the podium and Mercedes bringing in a lot of points. As a result, Mercedes is still in a position to fight with Ferrari for second place in the Constructors' Championship.
Mercedes continues to develop car
Just after the summer break, the race weekends in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy were scheduled. According to Shovlin, Mercedes learned important things there. "The learning that we took from that does give us an indication of where we need to develop the car in future."