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Mercedes technical chief: 'We can't reproduce it in the race'

Mercedes technical chief: 'We can't reproduce it in the race'

05-10-2022 20:39 Last update: 22:47
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GPblog.com

Mercedes had a disappointing weekend in Singapore. James Allison, Mercedes' technical director, explains in a debrief on the team's YouTube channel explaining how this came about.

George Russell had a disappointing weekend in Singapore. He had problems in qualifying that resulted in a complete engine change on Sunday before the race. As a result, he had to start the race from the pit lane. Unlike teammate Lewis Hamilton who was allowed to start from P3, but struggled in the conditions and battled with Carlos Sainz.

"We were obviously quick in qualifying but it's seemingly not being able to reproduce it in the race. Well I think that's very much just a fact of life, fact of racing on a wet track that is very difficult to overtake on with two cars that are a bit out of position", the technical director began in his look back. Russell started the race from the pit lane and Allison saw that he was very much out of position and trying to find his way through the cars in front of him that were slower. "We never got to see George's pace."

Hard to find grip

In Hamilton's case, the Mercedes chief says he could not keep ahead of Sainz in the first corners. He was then trapped by a slower Sainz, which meant he could not show the pace he had in the car. Then Hamilton got into a fight in the first corner with the Spaniard, where he was pushed wide, going through a lot of standing water with his tyres and what Allison said then immediately took 10 degrees out of the rubber. "It made it very difficult to find grip in the subsequent laps." He concludes, "But by the time he did that he was able to pull up to Sainz's bumper and was penned in by that."