During the race weekend in Austria, an unusual event for Mercedes took place – both drivers of the team crashed the cars in the final of qualifying. Although the mechanics were able to repair the damaged equipment and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell scored points in the sprint and race, Mercedes technical director Michael Elliott said Friday’s accidents put the team at risk of missing Sunday’s start.
Michael Elliott: “In a situation where both cars are broken, the weekend immediately becomes a very difficult weekend. The cars were badly damaged: both bottoms, both rear wings were damaged, many suspension parts were damaged, the front wing of Lewis’ car was broken and the chassis received cosmetic damage. All this can be fixed, but not on the weekend.
As a result, we had to build a Lewis car from scratch and try to assemble one piece from two bottoms. We only had one spare bottom and the second had to be assembled from two damaged ones.
In addition, we only had one new rear wing, which we put on the car for Lewis, because he had to break through to the top. As a result, George got a wing that was not ideal in terms of downforce he generated – for this track, such downforce proved to be excessive.
After we repaired the machines, we had to restore the settings again. We only had the second practice at our disposal, so again we had to compromise. In addition, there was a risk of missing Sunday’s race if the car was damaged in the sprint. All these factors put our weekend at risk.”
Source: F1 News
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