Mercedes: Early stint progress crucial for Hamilton on race day

Mercedes believe that the progress achieved by Lewis Hamilton in the opening stages of Sunday's Turkish Grand Prix will likely impact the Briton's position at the checkered flag.

Regardless of where he qualifies on Saturday, Hamilton will start his race 10 positions lower due to an engine change grid penalty levied upon the Briton.

After Friday's running, the seven-time world champion insisted that he would aim for pole in qualifying "to limit the loss" induced by his grid drop.

Mercedes has conducted simulations involving a mid-pack start, but Hamilton's chance of snatching a podium in Turkey will likely depend on his ability to move up the order at the outset according to Mercedes trackside engineer Andrew Shovlin.

"Whether we can get Lewis back on the podium, that’s often defined about what happens in the first stint, whether you can pick off some of those cars," explained Shovlin.

"Because throughout that stint, the race leaders are always getting away from you. It was very difficult to predict how well we’d get through traffic in Sochi.

"It was difficult just because we were understeering in the final sector, and that made it quite hard.

"Probably the hardest thing to simulate is really how close actually can you follow. Can you sit in someone’s gearbox without killing the tyres, without losing so much downforce that you can’t stay there?

"That’s the bit that’s really difficult to predict."

• Read also: Hamilton still aiming for pole despite grid penalty

Shovlin noted that Friday's sessions had not provided Mercedes with overwhelming evidence that overtaking will be easy around Istanbul Park's track on Sunday.

"Overtaking is pretty hard," he said. "It’s often a bit more difficult in the free practice sessions because you don’t run long stints on the tyres. You don’t get differences in degradation building up.

"So on that side, today’s indications are probably it’s a bit tougher than we would like. But you don't always get what you want.

"What we’ve also seen is that the car is working really well. Both drivers have had a strong day, which is good."

The British engineer also underscored the importance of Valtteri Bottas' role in the Turkish Grand Prix that will involve the Finn scoring maximum points for Mercedes while hopefully robbing Hamilton's arch-rival Max Verstappen of a position or two in the race.

"As much as the drivers’ championship draws everyone’s focus towards what is going on with Lewis, with Valtteri, the objective is quite clear that we need to get pole and we want to win the race," Shovlin added.

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