Shovlin protects Hamilton: 'No fault of his own'

"Lewis has had a tough weekend from start to finish through no fault of his own," Shovlin stated in Mercedes' press release. Although the seven-time world champion's start was good and he climbed from P14 to P11, points were far out of reach in the end. "We got undercut on the transition by a couple of cars, lost a bit of time with a slow stop and then to Esteban who was released into Lewis's path as they left the pits."

The 44 laps that followed after the first pit stop were "very frustrating," according to the British chief. "He was stuck in a DRS train and it was impossible to get through" Fortunately for Mercedes, Russell did manage to score good points with a fourth-place finish. According to Shovlin, that is a bright spot in what has otherwise been a disappointing weekend for the German racing stable.

In two weeks' time, the Miami Grand Prix will be on the program. "We know where we are on performance right now and we know where we need to get to. However, there are a couple of major issues with the car that if we can fix, we can find a lot of that gap quite quickly but time is getting critical now and we need to move forward in the next two races if we are to keep the leaders within any kind of reach this year," he concluded.