DDespite the difficulties they faced along the way when both of their riders crashed in a disastrous Q3 session, Mercedes were able to get away with the third and fourth in Austrian Grand Prix.
Lewis HamiltonIn particular, his car needed a comprehensive overhaul, and the team had less than 24 hours to fix the damage it sustained in the crash in the third quarter.
In the end, the mechanics performed what can be called a miracle.
“When you crash two cars it will always be a very difficult weekend from now on” Mercedes Engineer Mike Elliott said in Mercedes“Austria debriefing video as reported by GP Today.
“We did quite a lot of damage to the cars, we broke both floors, we broke both rear fenders, we damaged quite a lot of the suspension.
“On the LewisWe also damaged the front fender and some damage to the landing gear.
This meant a complete overhaul Lewiscar from scratch, which meant also trying to build one floor out of two.
“We had one full spare that we could install and we needed to extract a maximum of two destroyed floors in order to build another one.
“This car had to be built from nothing, with an engine, gearbox, all suspension, all the car systems that are attached to the chassis.
“Everything had to be put in place and the mechanics managed to do it in three and a half hours on Saturday morning, which is an amazing achievement.
“All credit to them for really bringing us back to FP2. The advantage of exiting in FP2 is that you can actually make sure that the installation on Lewis‘ The car was right, that the balance was right, and that he was happy with the car just in time for the sprint.”
The decision to give Hamilton a new rear wing
Elliott also acknowledged that the decision had to be made after both drivers lost their rear fenders and only one replacement was available.
“We decided to put it on Lewis“a car because it will have to drive through a field”, Elliott explained.
This, therefore, may explain why Hamilton was faster than his teammate and was able to get back on the podium.