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Publication date: September 28, 2020
Mercedes track engineering director Andrew Shovlin says the team only expected to receive a “reprimand” for Lewis Hamilton’s practice starts.
The British Chances of a 91st win were greatly hampered when he was given a 10-second penalty for taking pre-race practice runs in a non-designated area.
Specifically, he did it for the exit of the pit lane after receiving the permission of the team, feeling that there was too much rubber in the usual place.
“In some places, there is a box that they paint on the floor, and you have to do it in the box,” Shovlin said. Motorsport.com.
“Then in other places, it’s kind of a general area. And often, if there is a lot of rubber, that will not be representative of the network.
“The drivers and also the engineers will want to find a little bit closer in terms of grip on the grid. And all he asked Lewis was if he could go a little further.
“We hadn’t realized how far it was going to go. But it’s really just about finding a bit of asphalt that looks more like what you’ll get when you start the race properly. “
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Shovlin says the team quickly realized the mistake they and Hamilton had made when they saw the six-time World Champion making his second practice outing.
However, they did not expect to be penalized for it, instead thinking that the FIA would only warn them.
“We didn’t see the first, and when we saw the second we thought, ‘They’re not going to like that,’ but we didn’t think it was dangerous,” he added.
“And given the event notes that said it was on the right hand side after the pit exit, we thought it might have been ambiguous enough that we would have been scolded.
“When we looked at the position of the car, it wasn’t a surprise that they didn’t like it. And there is no doubt that there may be teams that have scored it as much as if the FIA or the stewards detected it themselves.
With his penalty, Hamilton couldn’t do better than finish P3. However, it was not all bad for the German team, as Valtteri Bottas took the victory.
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