Mercedes says Mick Schumacher and the Brackley squad’s simulator team practically saved Lewis Hamilton and George Russell from a qualifying disaster at Silverstone.
Although Mercedes was happy with the race pace of its W14 after the opening day of running at the British Grand Prix, qualifying simulations on Friday revealed an alarming level of underperformance.
Projections even placed Hamilton and Russell in the lower tier of the field come Saturday afternoon.
However, several hours of hard work by Schumacher and Mercedes’ engineers late on Friday night eventually led to a set-up that boosted the W14’s single lap performance while safeguarding the car’s race pace.
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“Over the years, the overnight work that happens on a Friday night preparing for Saturday, that has become more and more of an important factor in the rhythm of your race weekend,” explained Mercedes technical director James Allison in the team’s post-race video debrief on YouTube.
“And this weekend was a particularly important one. We had seen on our Friday that we had a really good race car. We had good, consistent, strong pace from both drivers and it looked like we were going to use our tyres well in the race stints on Sunday.
©Mercedes
“So we knew that our setup was sort of there or thereabouts and we wouldn’t want to change it too much, because you might sort of upset that delicate usage of the tyres that’s key to getting a good race run.
“However, we also knew on Friday that our one-lap pace was woeful, we were way down the timesheet, not with a bunch of excuses along with it, we were just slow.
“So our challenge overnight was how to find pace in a car for qualifying, without actually really sort of mucking about with the fundamental setup of the car.”
Cue Schumacher, Mercedes’ handy sim driver who burnt the midnight oil in the sim along with his engineers to solve the team’s set-up conundrum.
“And that’s what they set to do on Friday night in our simulator,” continued Allison.
“The engineers and Mick Schumacher working late into the night until 2am trying to figure out how to get the best preparation of the car to be in good shape for a qualifying lap, for that single-push lap without changing the fundamental setup.
“So only working on the sort of things you can change, the tyre pressures, flap angles and so on, the things that you’re allowed to change between qualifying and race and therefore things that we can do without upsetting the fundamental setup of the car.
“Brilliant overnight work from that team and the result being that our single lap qualifying-type pace lifted right back up to being in the mix for a decent grid slot on the Saturday which is what sets up our ability to have a good race on Sunday.”
On Saturday, Russell and Hamilton qualified respectively 6th and 7th, but on Sunday the former raced to a spot on the podium behind the unassailable Max Verstappen and McLaren Lando Norris, with Russell concluding his afternoon P5.
Mercedes’ drivers were likely appreciative of Schumacher’s efforts and input, just as they were last month in Barcelona when the young German worked tirelessly in the sim to help Hamilton and Russell turn around their Spanish Grand Prix fortunes.
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