© Richard Pardon for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin attended the Japanese Grand Prix Friday Press Conference. Here is the full transcript.
Q: Andrew, if we could come to you now. Encouraging start for Racing Bulls this year, also for Mercedes. Just how encouraged are you?
Andrew SHOVLIN: Well, it’s been a lot calmer than the last few years, mainly because the car is what we intended it to be. It hasn’t really got the vices that we’ve had in a couple of previous years and that’s down to doing good work over the winter. Good work last year to try and understand the problems. So far, we haven’t seen many circuits, but it’s worked well over the ones we have and through a range of conditions. So it’s good. There’s clearly a gap to McLaren that we need to chip away at, but that looks more like just a normal development race that we need to get stuck into rather than trying to get on top of any of the handling vices that we’ve had.
Q: As you say, a sample of two so far this year. When we go back to Japan last year, it wasn’t such an easy race for the team. Do you see Suzuka this weekend as a bit of a litmus test?
AS: I wouldn’t say it’s a litmus test in that sense. In some ways, I think Bahrain will be more interesting because there you’ve got a rear overheating circuit and that was one of the things we really struggled with. It’s another circuit. From P1, the car looks to be working OK. You’d also say that McLaren looked like the ones to beat. But, you know, the weekend started OK and we’ll see how it goes over the next few sessions.
Q: Andrew, can we talk about drivers? Toto has been full of praise for George Russell after the last outing in China. In what areas do you see that he’s stepped up this year?
AS: Certainly within the team, he’s very calm. He seems very confident. He’s done a great job in the first two races, so that’s been really encouraging. He just seems to be very relaxed in his position in the team now and he’s just going about getting the points, trying to qualify as well as he can. Front row in China was very encouraging. He’s pushing us hard to improve and he’s doing a lot of work himself.
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Q: What about the debutant, Kimi Antonelli? Have you been impressed by everything he’s done?
AS: Yeah. We did a lot of work with the old cars with Kimi, trying to get him used to driving a Formula 1 car. We were trying to do that in a relatively short space of time. From the first time we put him in an F1 car, you could see he was going to be a decent F1 driver and we had high expectations. If you look at how he performed in that wet race in Melbourne, that was quite exceptional for someone in their first race. And while we did a lot of mileage with him in the TPC testing, he’s not running with other cars, so this is the first opportunity you can put him in those racing situations. He was unlucky that he had damage to his car in Melbourne Qualy. Unlucky that he had damage on lap one in the race in China. But from what we’ve seen, really impressed and reassuring that he’s only going to get better from where he is already.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Andrew, to follow up on Tom’s question about George — obviously this year he’s the experienced driver in the team. Have you seen any change in terms of his approach now he’s sort of team leader, after Lewis has left? Or is it more just the case of building on what you’ve seen through his last few years?
AS: It’s inevitably going to change when you’ve got an experienced driver like George and then a rookie like Kimi. So those two are working together, and George is trying to give him the benefit of his experience. I would say that George has stepped up into that role — being the team’s most experienced driver now. We always knew he was quick, but in his own approach, he has brought a confidence and a calmness this year that’s working very well for us. You look at that race in Melbourne — George was communicating really well with us as to what the weather was doing and what he was feeling in the car. We were using a lot of that information to copy the strategy onto Kimi’s side because, for Kimi, a lot of it was new. But it’s really pleasing to see how the two of them are working together, and how George has stepped up into that role.
Q: (Jon Noble – The Race) To Andrew, the team seems to be kind of more on top of this current generation of car this year compared to where it’s been in the past, where it’s been a bit more up and down. Is there a fundamental understanding that you have now that was lacking in the past? Is it just consistency in chipping away at what it was, or was there a big concept element that shifted to give you the platform you have?
AS: No, I mean, I wouldn’t say we’ve really learned anything that we didn’t know halfway through last year. Where we’ve definitely done a better job is with the simulator work over the course of the winter — tracking the development of the car, making sure that the solutions we’re bringing to balance problems are appropriate for the balance problems we’re going to end up with. That whole process has been much more together than we’ve had in recent years. There were no surprises with winter testing. As we’re going through these early races, it’s encouraging that we’re seeing what we expect to see. As I said, there’s still work to do to catch McLaren, but that’ll just be the normal development work.
Q: (Jon Noble – The Race) Andrew, just following that up. George Russell talked about the team in the past falling into the trap of improving one area of the car and then having unintended consequences on another. You kept kind of chasing around. Was that a problem in the past and is that something you’ve addressed? Has that simulator improvement killed that issue?
AS: Yeah, I mean, it is really quite like he describes, where we would get a bit fixated on one thing and then inadvertently introduce a new problem. Getting the car… Well, these regulations are quite difficult to make a car that’s nicely balanced over a range of circuits, a range of different corner speeds — and being in control of that through your development is the key. As you change one area, you can affect another. It was really just about having much tighter control on that loop. That meant the car that rolled out in Bahrain was what we were hoping to see.
Q: Andrew, your thoughts on the rookies?
AS: Well, I mean, it’s quite impressive the way that a lot of them can go from F2 or other feeder series straight into F1 and perform at a good level. To be honest, we’ve had so much focus on Kimi. We haven’t really been looking at everyone else. With Kimi, we’re measuring him by where he is compared to George, where he is compared to the other drivers in the top teams. But yeah, there’s obviously a lot of talent there. It is difficult for them — when you’ve got one and a half days in Bahrain to get used to the new car, then you’re thrown into some of the situations we’ve had — the wet race in Melbourne, difficult circuits like China and here in Suzuka. They’re all quite challenging tracks. But I think it’s quite exciting for the sport to have so many new names coming into it.
Q: And Andrew, when you look at Kimi’s data and George’s data, where are the main differences at this stage?
AS: Well, the big one is — George has been to this track many times. He knows his way round it. You could see straight off in P1 that he’s pushing the car and putting it on the limit, and Kimi is deliberately stepping into that because he knows the worst thing for your weekend is you lose part of a session or you damage the car, and it just sets you back, a) in the learning but also in your confidence. So he’s having to structure his weekends with Bono to sort of close that gap through the course of it. There isn’t one area where it’s different. George just has a lot of experience — and obviously a lot of natural talent as well — and the big thing that Kimi is lacking is the experience.
Source: FIA.com
