Mercedes reflects on disastrous British Grand Prix decisions

19:41, 08 Jul

byKevin Doldersum

Mercedes spectacularly won last year's British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit. The contrast could hardly be greater for the German team last weekend, as only one point was scored by George Russell. Bradley Lord discussed how the team made all the wrong choices in treacherous conditions.

Lord was asked why Mercedes chose to bring Russell in for dry weather tyres in the warm-up lap. “We went to the grid yesterday. It was wet, and we could see also that it was going to stay dry probably for about 20, 25 minutes,” began the chief of communications in the Mercedes debrief ydkMGvWVxT British Grand Prix. “We knew there was a big weather front coming in behind. So the call was to try and maximize that dry window and hope that you can make the most of dry tyre performance and make up a pit stop gap.”

The decision was made by Russell himself. He reached out to his team over the radio during the warm-up lap, and Mercedes agreed with the Brit's decision. Several cars, including Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, made a pit stop before the race started.

“Then unfortunately what followed were VSC periods and other things that meant any dry tyre advantage that might've been there. And to be honest, in hindsight, it turns out that wasn't there for a number of laps. We're squandered because we were all running at reduced speed, costing temperature in the tyres. And it meant we couldn't really take advantage of that early bold call,” said Lord.

Aggression was not rewarded for Mercedes

Kimi Antonelli´s race ended after the Italian was hit from behind by Isack Hadjar in the early stages of the race. The race unfolded in an unpredictable way, and Mercedes made the wrong choice again towards the end of the race. This mistake was made when the track was drying up after the rain shower that had fallen around the halfway mark.

Lord described: “George wasn’t able to find a way past because that intermediate tire was dropping. And that was the point where we had to make the call on, okay, when do we go back to the dry tyre? Again, we chose to be aggressive."

"George obviously came out. The circuit was still too wet for dry tyres. George had the spin at Becketts, that cost him position. And then from there, really, it was very difficult to build an overtaking delta on similar aged tyres.”

Mercedes is currently third in the constructors' championship, but the team from Brackley has only scored eleven points in the last two races. “Been a pretty bruising double header to be honest with Austria and then Silverstone as well. And we’ve just got one fifth place finish to show for our efforts and one 10th place finish. So well below our expectations."

"So first and foremost, [to stop these results from repeating themselves, ed.) it is to put ourselves on a much better footing and demonstrate the full performance potential of the car,” concluded Lord.