Lewis Hamilton has decided that George Russell will run an upgraded front wing at Mercedes’ Monaco Grand Prix, according to trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
Russell had a new front wing last weekend. Mercedes only had one upgraded version available as they look to close the gap on the top three teams. Shovlin said the decision to bring in new parts was prompted by the driver, even though the number of parts available was not the same, and that Russell had received an update despite Hamilton later stating that Russell had been instrumental in qualifying ahead of his team-mate. He said he was the one who said he should get it.
“We’re looking at ways to get racing quantities of those wings in Montreal, and we’d normally say racing quantities are at least three, because we’ll have one for each car, and we’ll also have spare parts available if anything happens,” Shovlin said. Because you can,” Shovlin said.
“We don’t make three at once. We make the first, second and third. As a result, we were able to bring it to Monaco and have it ready on Friday for use over the weekend.
“Some time ago, drivers asked me why they always wait for a full set to come out. ‘Why not just let one of us run it?’ We agreed that given the team’s situation in terms of performance, we needed to improve and learn. To achieve this, it is a very good idea to apply a variety of specifications to your car. We agreed with the driver that he would be happy to take one to the track where we are now and we were both happy with it.
“The difficult question was how to decide who would run it. But Lewis said, ‘If you’re going to start this in a place where there aren’t enough parts, let George run it in Monaco.’ In the future there will be a single update and of course there will be alternating races from here on out. But Lewis made the decision very simple for us.”
Hamilton was also positive about the pace of development Mercedes is currently showing after seeing the wing’s impact at Monaco, while Shovlin said the true performance will emerge at future circuits.
“There’s a reason teams don’t usually bring update kits to Monaco, because the speed of the circuit is very slow. The fact that it’s so busy, short straight lines, really makes it very difficult to evaluate anything. But all the data we’ve seen says it’s delivering performance. It was giving an advantage in the feel of the car.
“George was happy with it and felt it was a step in the right direction. We’re happy with what we’ve seen so far, but we’ll learn a lot more from Montreal, especially when we get to tracks like Barcelona where there’s a wider corner speed range, and that’s where we can really start to learn.”
