© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin says the team is going to “optimistic for a strong performance”.
Mercedes’ weekend in Monza was far from perfect, but the team did ultimately manage to get P5 and P6, the best they could get under the circumstances.
However, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin believes that at the next race in Singapore, the W14 could perform much better.
“It seems that when we go to the low downforce settings,” Shovlin said.
“Ferrari get more competitive. In Monza, it looked like they had one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half tenths of performance on us.
“There is a reason to think that the car will work better and that is because Singapore is a maximum downforce circuit.
“Our performance at the high downforce tracks like at Barcelona, Budapest, and even Zandvoort the car was working well, and we’ve had pretty strong performance.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“We’re hoping to be able to be a bit quicker there and get back to a position where we can challenge for podiums.
“The track though does throw up some pretty unique challenges and we’ve also got some layout changes for this year.
“There is a sequence of four corners near the end of the lap that have been removed where the track used to go underneath a grandstand through a tunnel.
“That’s now gone so we’ve got a longer straight which will change a little bit how the tyres are working. There is a bit less energy there but it’s also an abrasive tarmac.
“We’ve got the softest three compounds so it’s a pretty tough race on the tyres and it’s also a bumpy street circuit. Added to that, the race is run at night.
“Plenty of challenges for us to try and tackle then but we are going there optimistic for a strong performance,” the Briton concluded.
