Mercedes Chief Explains Strategy Poker in Silverstone
With good pace and, above all, strategically correct decisions, Mercedes won their home race in Silverstone with Lewis Hamilton. While McLaren made a misstep with tire choice for Lando Norris, and Red Bull and Ferrari faltered by switching Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc to intermediates too early, Mercedes’ command stand consistently made the right calls.
Chief race engineer Andrew Shovlin gives insight into the most critical moments of the Silverstone race, which ultimately led to the success of the Silver Arrows. For him, one of the toughest decisions came relatively early in the race, when it was crucial to stay on slicks despite the wet track.
“If you came in for intermediates, it wasn’t wet enough—you would have destroyed them, and then what do you do?” Shovlin asks. “Then you either have to switch back to slicks or another set of intermediates.”
That’s exactly what happened to Charles Leclerc and Sergio Pérez, who pitted and subsequently played no significant role in the race, losing up to 15 seconds per lap and eventually having to switch to new intermediates like everyone else.
Mercedes relied heavily on their rain radar for their decisions. “Here, it was quite easy to detect the incoming rain. We knew when the shower would start,” Shovlin explains. “Based on the radar, you get a pretty good idea of how intense it will be, and over the weekend, we had already experienced many other showers. So we knew what to expect.”
They informed the drivers that they would likely need to endure the first shower and navigate a few difficult laps.
Why Mercedes Suddenly Lost Pace
Russell and Hamilton followed this advice, but they struggled during this phase and lost their double lead to McLaren. The initial good pace was no longer achievable at that point.
“This is related to tire temperature,” Shovlin analyzes. “The difference between us and them was perhaps that our tires were slightly more worn, so there was less rubber.”
“When you lose rubber, the tire temperature drops, and if a bit of rain is added, it cools down suddenly, and you can even fall completely out of the window,” he says.
“There was a brief phase where we really struggled with grip. We got back on track, but it all ties into temperature and is possibly just an indication of who had the most rubber left in this crucial phase.”
Double Stop Was Correct
Shortly thereafter, the real rain came, and all drivers had to switch to intermediates. From the leading group, Max Verstappen pitted on lap 26, and Mercedes followed one lap later. Importantly, the team executed a double-stack stop, bringing both drivers in simultaneously.
Although Russell had to wait behind Hamilton, it was still better than McLaren’s tactic, where Oscar Piastri stayed out one lap longer and lost significantly more time, perhaps even the race win.
“We could see a genuine wet phase coming that would last a while. That’s when we brought both in,” says Shovlin. “If we had sent one around for another lap, we would have lost another five to ten seconds because it became so difficult on slicks. At that point, you had to be on intermediates.”
In the following phase, Hamilton chased leader Lando Norris while being pursued by Max Verstappen, who was already about six seconds behind. With George Russell retiring due to a defect, the battle for victory among Mercedes, McLaren, and Red Bull came down to the final pit stop to switch back to slicks.
Here too, Mercedes timed it perfectly, switching in the right lap while Norris pitted one lap too late, losing the lead to the Brit. More importantly, Norris struggled on his softs and even lost a position to Verstappen, who had chosen hards.
Mercedes Could Have Chosen Hard
The Dutchman made the best decision at that moment, but Hamilton narrowly held the lead on his soft tires. So why did Mercedes choose softs for him? As Shovlin explains, the Silver Arrows also had hard tires available.
“When we mounted them, we didn’t know they would be as good as they were,” he explains simply. “The hard tire was the right tire for that part of the race. You saw how strong it was on Max.”
Mercedes was influenced by attempting an undercut against Norris. “We went out on a track that was on the verge of being too wet and slowly drying up, and we thought the soft tire would give us the best warm-up, the best chance to gain ground on Lando on the outlap and take the lead.”
“We didn’t really expect the hard tire to be that good,” Shovlin admits. “You could see Max catching up to us in the final phase, but luckily we had enough cushion to stay ahead until the checkered flag.”
Nervousness Until the End
In the final phase, nerves were high at Mercedes. They noticed Verstappen was on a different tire, which had consistently performed well.
“We know they have a very fast car, and it was a bit worrying because after all the decisions throughout the many laps of the race, it would have been terrible to lose it in the last moments,” Shovlin admits.
Only in the last three or four laps did he relax a bit, “because you could see that Max didn’t really have the pace to close Lewis’ gap and actually catch him.”
The reward was Lewis Hamilton’s ninth victory at his home race in Silverstone.
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