Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Mercedes, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2024

Mercedes still need “clean laps” to assess upgrade after drivers’ Mexican GP scrap

RaceFans Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Mercedes say they still need more relevant running to understand their most recent upgrade package.

In brief

Mercedes hoping for “clean laps” in Brazil

Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin said they didn’t gain as much knowledge of their latest upgrade as they expected to in Mexico as their drivers spent a significant part of the race in traffic, most of which as they fought each other.

“We’ve definitely got some useful data and what we’ve seen from the update to date is that it is delivering performance where we expect, certainly in terms of the loads that we’re measuring and also the pressures that we’re measuring on the aerodynamic surfaces,” he said in a video released by the team. “So that all seems fine.

“What we were hoping for that we didn’t get to the full extent was a sort of clean run with both cars where they’re in clear air where we can see how they performed through the race.”

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell swapped places three times during the race. “Lewis was quick off the line,” said Shovlin. “He got in front of George but he was struggling with his balance in stint one.

“We corrected that for stint two but then he had George ahead of him, who’d had his front wing issue, that flap that had failed. So then the two cars spent an awful lot of the race in traffic, which does affect your analysis.

“But what we’ve collected, yes, it’s useful, yes we can say it is performing more or less as expected, but we’re going to continue learning into Brazil and hopefully get some clean laps, some good running with that update kit.”

Sauber hire Ferrari strategist

Sauber have hired former Ferrari strategist Inaki Rueda as their new sporting director. In other changes at the team, which will become Audi in 2026, Giampaolo Dall’Ara has been named head of race engineering and long-time team member Beat Zehnder will become director of signature programs and operations next year.

RB signs F4 winner for F1 Academy

Rafaela Ferreira, who has won two of the 15 races in the Brazilian Formula 4 championship this year, will join RB’s F1 Academy team next year. She lies fourth in the standings with nine races remaining, including three supporting the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos this weekend.

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Social media

Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

Comment of the day

Why did Red Bull move Liam Lawson to F1 more slowly than other drivers on their junior programme?

If Red Bull thought that Lawson were a candidate for the Perez seat, they would have put him in the RB much, much earlier.

Instead of Lawson they tried to get Herta, then put De Vries and Ricciardo in the seat. Does this really seem like Lawson is Red Bull’s next great thing?
@Uzsjgb

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Gqsm, Jon Finn, Pejte and Alokin!

On this day in motorsport

Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Eddie Irvine, Suzuka, 1999
Mika Hakkinen beat Ferrari pair Mick Schumacher and Eddie Irvine to secure his second title today in 1999
  • 25 years ago today Mika Hakkinen won the world championship for the second time, at Suzuka

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

9 comments on “Mercedes still need “clean laps” to assess upgrade after drivers’ Mexican GP scrap”

  1. So from the next round onwards, Sauber’s strategies will be similar to how Ferrari’s used to be for a while.

    Admittedly, COTD makes a valid point. If Red Bull indeed truly desired him as Checo’s direct successor, they definitely should’ve replaced Ricciardo much earlier, if not even given Lawson a full-time drive for this season already so that he would’ve driven the entire season by this point rather than only two GPs.
    He’d also have had even more opportunities to show his worth, & gain experience towards the next season opener.
    Herta (even though he ultimately didn’t materialize), De Vries, Ricciardo, & even Colapinto if certain rumors are to be believed, which I doubt, so he’s already been overlooked before preference-wise & could once again, not to mention based on those rumors, Colapinto would directly replace Checo & therefore, even jump Tsunoda who’s been racing in F1 since 2021.

    1. So from the next round onwards, Sauber’s strategies will be similar to how Ferrari’s used to be for a while.

      Yeah, it’s sort of worrying for Sauber – then you realise they can’t slide much further back anyway.

      1. notagrumpyfan
        31st October 2024, 11:32

        One wonders how much (racing) strategy work there is for a team with cars typically ending last ;)

        But of course Inaki will not be the Strategy Director, but rather replace Zehnder as Racing Director which is quite a different role.

    2. Maybe they think Lawson is actually quite good so they delayed him… I mean they don’t seem keen on pairing max with a good driver

  2. notagrumpyfan
    31st October 2024, 7:13

    If the ‘next great thing’ is not available, then taking a (marginal) improvement is the best way forward.

  3. I guess Lewis will get more time as test mule then. Makes for a great excuse as to why he cant overtake his teammate down the straight without ridiculous pace advantage.

    1. My takeaway is that mercedes is washed. They’re still experimenting after 3 seasons and they need such specific scenarios to move forward.
      I’m also a bit annoyed they’ve been experimenting the last few races since a better mercedes would make the title battle much closer. They only finished 10 seconds behind leclerc on Sunday

      1. They only finished 10s behind LeClerc on Sunday as he made an extra pitstop to go for FLAP.

  4. Its quite clear that even after 3 years they do not know how to correlate upgrades with reality. No doubt that the upgrades have not made the car better as they hoped.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments are moderated. See the Comment Policy and FAQ for more.
If the person you're replying to is a registered user you can notify them of your reply using '@username'.