Director of Engineering for the Silver Arrows, Andrew Shovlin stated that the seven-time world champion had the pace to be in the middle of the race between his teammate, George Russell, and Lando Norris
Lewis Hamilton was extremely hampered by the traffic in Monaco, which prevented him from going after Lando Norris and even his teammate, George Russell. At least, that is what Mercedes itself thinks, in the person of its director of engineering, Andrew Shovlin.
The seven-time world champion, it is worth remembering, spent a good part of the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix stuck behind Fernando Alonso. Even with a better pace than the Alpine's Spaniard, the Briton couldn't overtake and found himself stuck at the rear of his rival. Between his two stops, he was in a fight with Esteban Ocon, also unable to pass.
"The frustration with Lewis' race in Monaco was that he spent almost entirely behind traffic. He couldn't fit in many laps to show what he was really capable of, but the car was running reasonably well," Shovlin analyzed. "We didn't have the pace to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull, but he (Hamilton) would certainly be in the middle of the fight with George and Lando," he added.
During the dispute with Ocon on the streets of Monte Carlo, Hamilton suffered from a small damage to his front wing. Nothing serious, according to the Silver Arrows' engineering director.
"It wasn't that big a number. Looking at the data we took from the car, (damage) was around one to two tenths of a second. So, nothing big and the red flag allowed us to repair any damage. We were able to change the front wing without any kind of pit-stop time loss," said Andrew Shovlin.
"More satisfying than that was the only kind of damage we had during the weekend in Monaco. Very good work by both drivers in bringing the cars more or less intact home," finished the mercedist.
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