Shovlin: 'Mercedes sees lots of opportunities to improve performance'

It was a disappointing start to the new Formula One season for Mercedes in Bahrain. Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' head of engineering, saw the problems coming and stresses that the team cannot compete for race victories for the time being.

The first showdown of 2022 was on Saturday during qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Immediately it became clear that Mercedes is trailing Red Bull Racing and Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton qualified fifth, while George Russell did not get further than P9. It resulted, partly due to the failure of both Red Bull cars, in third and fourth places on Sunday.

Mercedes could play with strategy

Shovlin reveals in a press release that the team wanted to limit the damage as much as possible in Bahrain. He says Mercedes drove a bit in a no man's land, as the team could not attack Ferrari and Red Bull and otherwise felt no pressure from behind. This gave the German brand the chance to play with strategy.

"Our priority has to be to get on top of our current performance issues; we don't have a car to fight for pole or race wins and that isn't something that we can tolerate for long if we ambitions to win the championships," Shovlin let it be known.

Not everything was negative

Shovlin says the biggest problem is the grip of the car. Mercedes needs to tune the car high in order to reduce 'porpoising'. The weekend was not all negative according to Shovlin. The team sees a lot of potential for performance improvements and at least the car was reliable.