Shovlin: We should at least qualify for the final

After the results of the first training session in Miami, George Russell was on the second line of the session’s protocol and Lewis Hamilton on the 8th, and overall the Mercedes cars looked more stable. Andrew Shovlin, the team’s chief race engineer, believes there are encouraging signs of some progress.

Andrew Shovlin: “While we are not ready to say that we have reached the desired level, the start of the weekend is encouraging. Many new parts have appeared on our car, including both the fenders, front and rear, we have new and more efficient ones. But the W13 is still heavier than we’d like, although we’re gradually reducing its weight.

However, it seems that the machine is working more or less well. If we had problems in Imola because it was difficult for us to warm up the rubber, then there could be problems here due to overheating. I’m not sure we’re on the right track to fix them yet, and I wouldn’t be thrilled in advance, but we know we should have made some improvements.

The build-up of the car at high speeds is still visible, but less so. But the destabilization could be stronger or weaker depending on the route, and we’re still not quite sure what patterns are influencing it, why, for example, in Jeddah the build-up was more pronounced than in Bahrain. We’ll continue to study it, but it seems our car in Miami is already working better.

At least better than at Imola where we only had one practice session to tune the car and the W13 is very difficult to tune and that backfired on us.

So far our minimum program is to make it to the qualifying final, but it is unlikely that we can fight for pole position. We know there is still a lot of work to do, but we will move forward step by step.”