Mercedes racing director Andrew Shovlin explained the reasons for changing several elements of Lewis Hamilton’s drive unit in Baku .
The Briton says that sooner or later they had to serve the penalty, and for fear of not having to do it at a more favorable race, they decided on a weekend where they had little chance.
Hamilton didn’t have his best qualifying in Baku, but it’s worth mentioning that after qualifying seventh, it’s not usual for a team to want to start from the pits after an engine change.
But given that it wasn’t a weekend where they could do big things and they had to take penalties in some races, they decided to do it in Azerbaijan, before new updates arrive.
“The Lewis situation started in Melbourne, where we lost a fairly young engine to failure,” Shovlin said in the Mercedes report.
“We were aware that we had to put in another power unit in order to finish the season without another failure during the race.”
“The question is wherever we were able to do that and normally, you don’t usually penalize when you start seventh, because there are chances to win points.”
“The point is that we have recently taken a step back in terms of our performance, but in the near future we have a good package of improvements, which we hope will put us in a better position,” he notes.
“For that reason, we wanted to take the embarrassment of starting from the pits before you have a car that can again fight for the podium on its own, so we think so and now the penalties are a thing of the past,” he added.
After Singapore, Mercedes will use the three-week break, when the factories will be open, to work on its next improvements.
For the United States Grand Prix, which takes place in Austin, the German team will bring the last major upgrade package of the season, although smaller items will also arrive before the end of the year.
“We’re always looking to increase performance at every race, but right now we’re focused on bringing a bigger package to Austin, before we go to the last six races of the year. Then there will be more things on the way, but we are working on those improvements for Austin,” added Andrew Shovlin.
