Mercedes chief: 'It's a shock how far ahead Verstappen was this weekend'

F1 News

28 August 2022 at 17:21
  • GPblog.com

Max Verstappen's victory in the Belgian Grand Prix has not gone completely unnoticed by Mercedes either. Andrew Shovlin told the press release of the German racing team that he is impressed by the performance of the Dutchman.

"He was in a different league today and would have won from anywhere on any strategy," the Mercedes chief judged. "It's a bit of a shock how far ahead he has been this weekend; we've clearly got more work to do than we thought, fingers crossed he isn't this fast around every track!

Shovlin sees big challenge for Mercedes

With Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes had an early dropout. The Briton collided with Fernando Alonso and had to retire after the first lap. George Russell did his best to get past Carlos Sainz, but was unable to do so. As a result, he narrowly missed out on the podium.

"The weekend overall has been tough. We'd hoped to move forward here with our updates and whilst it seems that Ferrari are closer to us on race pace, Red Bull are clearly not. We have struggled with the various compromises the car has here, much more so than the races leading into the summer break and that's definitely made our lives more difficult."