Mercedes not having a good Saturday: 'Not ideal that Hamilton lost places'

The first ever sprint race in Formula 1 did not deliver the desired result for Mercedes. After an excellent qualifying by both Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas the Saturday went completely different. Hamilton lost his pole position at the start to Max Verstappen and could not regain it in the 100 kilometres that followed.

Andrew Shovlin, technical director of Mercedes, also saw this. Speaking to SkySports, Shovlin said that Saturday could have gone a lot better for the black cars.

"It's not ideal that we lost a place at the start with Lewis, but we can be encouraged by the pace of the car, which will hopefully be enough to put pressure on Max tomorrow. We also have two cars up front and that provides strategic opportunities. After the first lap we couldn't do much; on same-age tyres it was difficult for Lewis to get close enough to attack and for Valtteri he tried a bit harder to compensate for being on the soft tyre."

Shovlin on sprint race

According to Shovlin, the sprint race made planning for tomorrow's race easier. He says he has a better idea of the pace of the other teams than he normally does prior to a race.

"Today's sprint race makes it a bit easier to plan for tomorrow because you have a clear idea of everyone's pace and how the tyres are behaving, so we need to do some more tonight to learn as much as we can from that." Despite Hamilton losing a place during the sprint race and Red Bull seeming faster in terms of race pace, Shovlin says the goal for this weekend is still achievable.

"Our goal was to come here, to win and to close the gap in the championship and I think after what we've seen over the last two days, that's still an achievable goal."

Tomorrow, Hamilton and Mercedes will have to work hard to make the gap in both championships a lot smaller. What helps is that Sergio Perez will start at the back of the grid, from the pits.