© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Some have suggested Lewis Hamilton should have been called in for a third pit stop at the Dutch Grand Prix, but Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin explains why it “wouldn’t have worked”.
At the Dutch Grand Prix Mercedes tried to perform an undercut on Max Verstappen on two occasions, but failed both times.
Some, including Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn, have suggested Lewis should have stopped one more time, 20 laps before the end of the race, to switch to soft tyres and try to hunt down Verstappen.
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin explains why this was not a good option.
“The reality with this race was most people were actually making it a one-stop, a one-stop that needed some management,” Shovlin said.
“You saw up at the front Lewis and Max were pushing those tyres harder, they were on the two-stop strategy.
“And while that was viable, it was potentially even the fastest way to do the race – when you make that extra stop there isn’t enough tyre degradation to make up the fact you have another 20 seconds or so in the pits.
“The reality is the third stop wouldn’t have worked. We are monitoring these things live, always looking at every opportunity that we can to try and generate some strategic advantage.
“But what we could see in this instance was you’d make that third stop, you’d drop back and you’d never even catch back up during the remainder of the race.”
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Hamilton’s second stop was also problematic, as the Briton came out in the middle of heavy traffic. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said after the race that the team “didn’t time it right”.
Shovlin explains why the decision was made to stop at that particular moment.
“The basic problem was that if we had left it later and later, at some point Max was going to stop anyway. So you would lose the ability to attempt an undercut.
“That was the reason we knew we would have to drop into backmarker traffic. It’s fair to say we did lose quite a critical chunk of time.
“But the strategy group are taking the race data, reconstructing the tyre curves and we will then forecast what would have happened if we had gone a few laps later, a few laps earlier.
“That’s all part of the process of using our experience of racing to try and learn and improve each race.
“That work will get done over the next day or two,” concluded the Briton.
