Mercedes confess to wrecking Hamilton race with mistake

Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin has shared a crucial mistake made by the team during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

An early safety car was triggered on lap six when Lance Stroll found his way into the turn 22 barriers at the Corniche Circuit.

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While most of the field , including George Russell, came into the pits under the slow-down period, Lewis Hamilton was kept out to take track position.

Mercedes had hoped for another incident to halt the race so they could make a cheap stop, but it went uninterrupted from that green flag until the end.

Shovlin: We should have pitted Hamilton under safety car

Ultimately, Hamilton struggled with the W15 in the high speed corners and finished the race ninth after making his stop, beaten by debutant Oliver Bearman, while Russell came home fifth.

And speaking on the Mercedes official YouTube channel for a race debrief, Shovlin, otherwise known as ‘Shov’, said that the team should have brought Hamilton in under the safety car.

“With the benefit of hindsight, yes, we should have done that,” he said. “Now, what we didn't know at the time was whether there will be another incident. And the other thing we didn't know was just how durable the tyres were going to be.

”But that safety car that landed around lap seven, that was right on the point where we're deciding whether we come in or not with both cars. Had it been lap eight or lap nine, then probably we would have done.

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“The downside if you were Lewis as the car behind is that you need to build a gap and you're not allowed to do that. You can't just push people back on track when there is a safety car.

“They obviously can't overtake you, because you'll get a penalty for obstructing them,” he added. “So, when George has been serviced in the box, Lewis would have had a wait. You've also got cars coming down the pit lane where if there's a queue of cars coming down the pit lane, we can't release George and Lewis is stuck there. And it was simply that we felt he would lose time.

“However, we were also covering our bases that if there was another safety car later on in the race, he would have been able to take the benefit from that and then you've got cars on offset strategies.

“So as I said, if we knew what would have happened, subsequently for sure we'd have done them both. It would have been the right thing for Lewis. But at that point that it landed, it was right at the point of the race where we would have done just one and then two laps later would have done them both. “

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