© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin says the team “managed to pull forward about half of our update kit to Miami and the other half is going to arrive in Imola”.
Mercedes introduced its first upgrade package at the Miami Grand Prix, and although the results don’t necessarily demonstrate it, the team is adamant that the car has shown signs of improvement.
Now, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin says the Miami upgrade was just one half of the planned first upgrade package, and the second half will arrive in Imola.
“We managed to pull forward about half of our update kit to Miami and the other half is going to arrive in Imola,” the Briton said.
“We’re working very hard on the future races to try and bring developments to them as well.
“Did it work as expected? Yes, it all looks like it’s delivering the performance that we were hoping for from the floor.
“The issue at the moment is everyone else is developing their cars. You saw McLaren with a big package and they look to have moved forward.
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“And also, the handling issues that the drivers are having to battle with are making it hard to really see all that performance as a straight step forward.
“What we tend to find is that the car can behave quite differently from session to session.
“And until we get on top of that, we’re always going to blunt the benefit that we can get from these type of updates.
“But after the last few races, we’ve now got a very clear idea of what we need to do to the car to get it handling a bit more easily for the drivers, making sure it goes where they want it to go when they’re on those important qualifying laps.
“And we’ve also got a good thread of updates that’ll be coming over the next three or four races.
“A lot of hard work going on but hopefully we will start to see the fruits of that soon,” Shovlin concluded.
