Mercedes chief reveals 'BRILLIANT' 2am session that saved team's weekend

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Mercedes chief reveals 'BRILLIANT' 2am session that saved team's weekend

James Allison says work of engineering and sim team helped Mercedes succeed at Silverstone

Lauren Sneath

Thursday 13 July 2023 17:57

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Mercedes technical director James Allison has praised the ‘brilliant overnight work’ of the team’s engineers and sim driver Mick Schumacher which he credited for the strong race pace of the cars at the British Grand Prix.

The young Schumacher, son of F1 legend Michael, was left without a seat on the grid last season and is Mercedes’ reserve driver this year.

Allison explained that the team’s one-lap pace on Friday before the British Grand Prix was ‘woeful’ but said that after Schumacher and the team’s engineers worked ‘late into the night’ preparing and practising, the pace improved.

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In a video for the Mercedes YouTube channel, Allison said: “Over the years, the overnight work that happens on a Friday night preparing for for Saturday has become more and more of an important factor in the rhythm of your race weekend, and this weekend was a particularly important one."

Mick Schumacher is the reserve driver for Mercedes this season

He added: “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 so we knew that our setup was sort of there are 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 and on with it we were just slow so our challenge overnight was how to find [ace in a car for qualifying without actually really sort of mucking about with the fundamental setup of the car, and that's what they set to do on Friday night in our simulator.”

‘Pace lifted right back up’

Allison explained that the team can only change certain things over the weekend, but that they worked hard to deliver strong results at Silverstone.

He said: “The engineers and Mick Schumacher are working late into the night till 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 things that you can change – the tyre pressures, the 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, the result being that our single lap qualifying pace lifted right back up to being in the mix for a decent grid slot on the Saturday which is what set up our ability to have a good race on Sunday.”