Mercedes 'hasn't ruled out fighting for 2022 F1 title' as upgrades show promise

Was there any frustration that the team was not able to see how the car performed in a normal dry qualifying session?

“To be honest, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the frustration that we’d be feeling if we brought a load of parts and we felt like we’ve gone backwards,” said Shovlin.

“Because as I said the thing that worries us is not having a development direction. The race pace was okay on Friday, I think we made a step forward overnight, it remains to be seen where we drop out. But if we have, it should be at least a fun race for us if we can keep up with the Red Bulls and the Ferraris for once.”

It’s not too simplistic to suggest that after all the firefighting of the last few months, trying to understand the car and address fundamental issues, and then getting through those awkward street tracks, the team now has a handle on things.

“In the first few races, we were just of fighting to survive”

And it can now properly start to address performance and get closer to the frontrunners on a regular basis, and in other words do the things that the team is usually so good at doing.

“In the first few races, we were literally just sort of fighting to survive,” Shovlin admitted. “And the drivers were fighting to survive with a car that was incredibly difficult to work with. But we did a decent job there of scoring points, actually and picking up on the opportunities when others were unreliable.

“Barcelona was useful for us because we had something that wasn’t bouncing around on every circuit that we went to. But clearly that run of three street tracks highlighted another weakness. And to be honest, we’re just going through it, looking for the problems, and then we’ll try and apply our engineering skills to solving them.

“But I would say that the route that we want to take now is becoming increasingly clear. And that’s encouraging from a development point of view. I think this update is the first proper update along the line that we started to create in Barcelona, this is the first one that we brought to the track, and it’s encouraging to see that it’s worked.”

As Shovlin suggested the Spanish GP update package was a crucial step in the learning process, giving the team a direction in which to go.

“We changed concept in Barcelona perhaps in terms of the way the car was working to try and solve some of that bouncing. And whilst our issues with bouncing quite rightly generated a lot of interest in the early races because we were at the worst end of the pack, if you look at us here, I think we’re actually near the better end of it, we’re certainly not the best, but we’re a long way from being the worst.

“So I think we have made progress. And what we’re left with is a car that is a bit stiffer than we would like. But it’s certainly a car that we can start to work with.”

All year ride height has been a critical factor, and the difficult thing has been to find the right compromise between performance and bouncing at each track.

“With these regulations, the challenge was always going to be generating downforce high up, it does look like we are running low. And that is one of the things that we’d like to develop, but we’re making progress in that direction.

“But, you know, in terms of the concept of the car, we’ve actually changed our car an awful lot since it first ran, it’s behaving very, very differently to when it first ran. Even though if you look at it from a distance it looks quite similar to what we had at round one, aerodynamically it is quite different beast now.”

As Shovlin hinted earlier, while the street races were difficult for Mercedes, they also provided some valuable lessons. Those have fed back into the development process.

“They were they were quite interesting from a point of view of understanding what’s not right with the car at the moment. And in previous years we’ve won championships by designing a car that works well over the average track. You’ll have seen that often we weren’t the best in Monaco, we weren’t the best in Mexico.

“But when we came to your bog-standard racing circuits, we were always there or thereabouts. And we’re always going to aim to do that with this car. But we’re not where we want to be with that at the moment.”

Mercedes’ 2023 car is already taking shape

The bigger picture in the background is 2023 and beyond. The W14 is already taking shape on the computer screens in Brackley, and all the lessons learned in recent months are feeding into that.

“We’re still very much focused on this car at the moment”

“With next year’s car at the moment we’re at the concept stage, where you’re looking at the big changes, the things that you’re locked into from the first running of the car for the whole year, really. And those are the bits, you put the effort into trying to get right. And then we’re also looking at where how can you create development opportunity within the car.

“But we’re still very much focused on this car at the moment. And we don’t know whether we can fight for second in the championship, we’re not ruling out fighting for first even though it feels increasingly like a long shot.

“But we’re full steam ahead trying to develop this and get into the fight, because that’s by far the most important thing, showing that we can solve these problems more so than where we finish in the championship.”