Mercedes: "We could sit close enough to Max to force him in early"

"It was a good day's work by the team and drivers but it felt like a lot of effort to get back to where we started," Shovlin said in the team review of Mercedes on Sunday evening. Lewis Hamilton lost a position to Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas was stuck behind Charles Leclerc for quite a while.

At the German racing team, they were satisfied with the fact that Verstappen did not manage to pull away at the head of the field. "We knew overtaking on-track was going to be a long shot on the same age tyres but at least we could sit close enough to Max to force him in early and with Valtteri, to go for the undercut on Charles."

Mercedes ended up going for a two-stop with Hamilton, but initially that was not the plan. "Going into the race, we thought a one-stop would be much easier to complete than it turned out to be but I don't think we were alone going in with that mindset. That's largely down to the short sessions, with less time to do our homework but at least the scene was set for the alternative strategy to take the win as many cars were dropping off at the end," Shovlin said referring to the first two free practice sessions, both of which have been half an hour shorter since 2021.