Shovlin: “We aim to secure more victories in the final part of the season”

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ Track Engineering Director, discussed the team’s expectations for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend and also mentioned their goals for the remainder of the season.

In a briefing after the Italian Grand Prix, Shovlin stated, “Baku has always been a challenging track when it comes to predicting where you’ll end up.”

“It’s a really unusual circuit. After a very tight and low-speed second sector, there’s a really long straight.”

“It requires a relatively low wing level; normally, you wouldn’t have that for all those low-speed corners, but you need it for the long straight.”

“It’s also a weekend where a lot of incidents can affect the race. It’s very likely that a safety car will come out if a driver makes a mistake.”

However, the situation in 2024 is made even more challenging by multiple teams competing for victory.

Shovlin noted, “Another issue we’ve faced this year is that at any track, at least three, even four teams, are within 0.1-0.2 seconds of each other.”

“This makes it very difficult to predict where we’ll be in qualifying or race pace.”

“We already expect McLaren to be fast, we’ve seen Ferrari showing some strong performances recently, and you can never ignore Red Bull.”

“But we also hope to showcase our maximum performance and secure a few more race wins in the final part of the season. Hopefully, we can achieve that.”