Mercedes hopes that George Russell can avoid penalty after technical problem at Silverstone
Mercedes Chief Trackside Engineer Andrew Shovlin has revealed that the Brackley-based team fears an engine penalty for George Russell following his recent technical woes at last weekend's Silverstone round.
George Russell secured his second pole position of 2024 in last Saturday's qualifying session for the British Grand Prix. The Briton then led the way in the early stages of the race until rain hit the track.
The challenging conditions saw Russell and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton fall behind the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Although Russell managed to find his rhythm later on, a reliability issue forced him to retire from his home race.
Mercedes' Chief Trackside Engineer Andrew Shovlin revealed that the Brackley-based squad was aware of the issue from the early stages of the race, but it hoped that the technical problem will not be terminal.
"I mean unfortunately we knew that we had an issue relatively early in the race, so we were tracking this from the first stint," Sholvin started his assessment.
"We didn't know that it was going to be terminal, but it's all linked to a leak that was in the water system that was causing the pressure to start to drift, and ultimately when we stopped the car, it was to protect the power unit.
"So we knew that we were never going to finish the race. What you don't want to do is finish the race and destroy the power unit, then you'll be looking at a penalty possibly later in the year. So it was preventative, but there was no way that we were going to get to the chequered flag.
Asked what Russell could have achieved without his technical issue, Shovlin failed to give a clear-cut answer, claiming that the wet and changeable conditions made it difficult to be always spot on with the strategy calls.
"With a race like that, with the changing conditions, it's quite hard to say this is where we would have finished. If it had been a dry race start to finish, looking at how George got off the line, how he was able to build a gap, I think he would have had a pretty straightforward afternoon.
"But if you take the point where we actually decided to retire the car, we were on intermediates, George was in P4, he was closing in on Max, so that was looking good. And to get him on the podium, he would have probably had to overtake Max at that point realistically, because we called the stop lap correct with Lewis when we went to dry tyres.
"So I think earlier it might have been a bit too damp. So as I said, minimum of P4, but there would have been a shot at it if he could have passed Max on track on the Inter," Shovlin concluded.
