The United States Grand Prix will see both aerodynamic updates and weight-saving features, after the car exceeded the limit by around 10kg earlier this year.
While the intention is for the aero package to help Lewis Hamilton and George Russell at Austin, the team is also considering developments for next year’s W14 F1 car.
“This is our final stage of aero development and it will hopefully give us a bit more performance,” Shovlin said in a Mercedes video.
“But above all, with each step, we learn more and more and this learning that we can continue next year.
“In addition, we have reduced the weight of components which will hopefully bring the car closer to the weight limit.”
The team makes no predictions about the potential benefits of the package: “It’s very difficult for us to predict where we’re going to be. In Singapore Lewis was awfully close to pole position, but at Suzuka both cars had a big gap to the front,” Shovlin said.
“Now our race pace is reasonably high. If we can take a step I hope we can fight with the Ferraris and the Red Bulls, but qualifying for us is the hardest thing to predict at the moment.
“But as I said, a lot of it is about learning and we will definitely give our best in the last four races.”
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Shovlin acknowledged that the Circuit of the Americas is not an easy track to master, but he hopes some work the venue is doing on its infamous bumps will help.
“It’s a tricky circuit and it was a tricky circuit for us last year. It was very bumpy, there was also a lot of tire overheating, and we weren’t performing as well as Red Bull on softer tyres.
“They’ve resurfaced, so hopefully those issues with the bumps are a bit less. But what is very difficult this year is to really know where you are going to be on the circuit before you have been there.
“We’re not really going to make predictions on where we’re going to play, we just have to go there on Friday, see what kind of issues we have and then see if we can fix them with the setup.”
Shovlin also admitted that Mercedes now had doubts about the decision to stick with a high downforce rear wing throughout the Suzuka weekend, which exacerbated the straight line speed issues the drivers have been having. faced this season.
“We decided to stay at our highest downforce. Part of that decision was that it actually gave us the best lap times in the race conditions where we were going to have a lot of degradation in the dry, but we had also seen this rain coming on Sunday, and we felt that in a wet race that could be an advantage.
“Actually DRS was never activated which meant overtaking was very, very difficult and maybe the right decision would have been a lower downforce setting.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A522, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“Basically one of the things we need to improve on the car for next year is to make the car have more downforce at the lower drag levels and then we can race those lighter wings and stay competitive. in the turns.”
Shovlin also conceded the team made a mistake in piling up Hamilton and Russell for the switch from wet to intermediate tires at Suzuka. Russell lost places as a result and immediately complained about the decision.
“We went through all the timing of this, and we concluded that no, it was not the right decision.
“We should have done what George asked, which was to give him the lap in clean air. We had seen that the intermediates were much faster, so in the wet you would have lost track time.
“But the problem was that George and Lewis were a bit too close for us to make the pit stop without wasting time and that time ultimately cost George the position at Tsunoda and maybe even the position at Lando.
“So it gave him a bit more of a challenge to have to pass those cars to try and find some clean air.”
The United States Grand Prix will see both aerodynamic updates and weight-saving features, after the car exceeded the limit by around 10kg earlier this year.
While the intention is for the aero package to help Lewis Hamilton and George Russell at Austin, the team is also considering developments for next year’s W14 F1 car.
“This is our final stage of aero development and it will hopefully give us a bit more performance,” Shovlin said in a Mercedes video.
“But above all, with each step, we learn more and more and this learning that we can continue next year.
“In addition, we have reduced the weight of components which will hopefully bring the car closer to the weight limit.”
The team makes no predictions about the potential benefits of the package: “It’s very difficult for us to predict where we’re going to be. In Singapore Lewis was awfully close to pole position, but at Suzuka both cars had a big gap to the front,” Shovlin said.
“Now our race pace is reasonably high. If we can take a step I hope we can fight with the Ferraris and the Red Bulls, but qualifying for us is the hardest thing to predict at the moment.
“But as I said, a lot of it is about learning and we will definitely give our best in the last four races.”
Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images
Shovlin acknowledged that the Circuit of the Americas is not an easy track to master, but he hopes some work the venue is doing on its infamous bumps will help.
“It’s a tricky circuit and it was a tricky circuit for us last year. It was very bumpy, there was also a lot of tire overheating, and we weren’t performing as well as Red Bull on softer tyres.
“They’ve resurfaced, so hopefully those issues with the bumps are a bit less. But what is very difficult this year is to really know where you are going to be on the circuit before you have been there.
“We’re not really going to make predictions on where we’re going to play, we just have to go there on Friday, see what kind of issues we have and then see if we can fix them with the setup.”
Shovlin also admitted that Mercedes now had doubts about the decision to stick with a high downforce rear wing throughout the Suzuka weekend, which exacerbated the straight line speed issues the drivers have been having. faced this season.
“We decided to stay at our highest downforce. Part of that decision was that it actually gave us the best lap times in the race conditions where we were going to have a lot of degradation in the dry, but we had also seen this rain coming on Sunday, and we felt that in a wet race that could be an advantage.
“Actually DRS was never activated which meant overtaking was very, very difficult and maybe the right decision would have been a lower downforce setting.
Esteban Ocon, Alpine A522, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
“Basically one of the things we need to improve on the car for next year is to make the car have more downforce at the lower drag levels and then we can race those lighter wings and stay competitive. in the turns.”
Shovlin also conceded the team made a mistake in piling up Hamilton and Russell for the switch from wet to intermediate tires at Suzuka. Russell lost places as a result and immediately complained about the decision.
“We went through all the timing of this, and we concluded that no, it was not the right decision.
“We should have done what George asked, which was to give him the lap in clean air. We had seen that the intermediates were much faster, so in the wet you would have lost track time.
“But the problem was that George and Lewis were a bit too close for us to make the pit stop without wasting time and that time ultimately cost George the position at Tsunoda and maybe even the position at Lando.
“So it gave him a bit more of a challenge to have to pass those cars to try and find some clean air.”