Mercedes see Verstappen as their biggest threat: "We know he can race very well"

As usual, Mercedes locked out the front-row of the grid in qualifying. Max Verstappen will start a few places to the back in P5, but according to Andrew Shovlin, the Dutchman remains the biggest threat to the team.

In qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, it is important for many teams to get behind another car in order to take advantage of the slipstream created.

However, Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' Chief Race Engineer, says his team is not really benefiting from that strategy. "We'd done a bit of analysis yesterday on the effects of towing and for us, we seemed to be losing as much in the corners as we were gaining on the straights. Based on that, we decided to try and find some clean air to run in, which has the added benefit of simplifying your qualifying session. Our team has been very busy in Brixworth over the last two weeks preparing for the introduction of the single-engine mode and they have done a good job of retaining competitive power in qualifying," Shovlin says in the team review of Mercedes.

The biggest competitor in the race

It's clear that Mercedes don't have to use complex strategies or the party mode to put down a strong qualifying performance. The result shows that with another 1-2 finish. Still, Shovlin keeps looking back. "From Friday, it seemed that Max was closest to us on long-run pace. He's a few places back to start, but we know he races very well so it probably won't take him long to get through".

"Needless to say both of our drivers want to win tomorrow and with such a long run to Turn 1, the start is going to be really important", concludes Shovlin.