Reigning constructors’ champions Mercedes and their star driver Lewis Hamilton have struggled to get to grips with their W13 in the opening two races of the 2022 season with the team struggling to match the pace of the frontrunners.

Mercedes' struggles were thrust into the limelight in Jeddah last weekend as seven-time champion Hamilton failed to progress from Q1 in qualifying, only managing a time good enough for P16.

Reflecting on the teams difficult weekend, Andrew Shovlin admits the team are struggling to understand their car which ultimately left Hamilton with a less than optimum setup in qualifying.

“Well, there’s a few reasons but fundamentally, we don’t really understand the car yet-” Shovlin said. “We've only had two races with it. So, we are always exploring the setup with Lewis [Hamilton], trying to find a direction that delivers performance and we'd found a good direction from Friday into Saturday that he was able to try in the third practice session. We went quite a bit further on that into the qualifying session, but ultimately it was a bit too far.” 

Shovlin went on to explain an unstable rear left Hamilton without the confidence required to perform at the limit on a qualifying lap around a circuit like Jeddah. 

“From the word go, he was lacking rear grip, Jeddah is a street circuit that you need a lot of confidence, it's very fast, the walls are very close and when you haven’t got the rear grip, the driver can't have that confidence. So, ultimately, we pushed it a bit too far but it was a useful learning exercise.”

Hamilton’s woes continued into Sunday in Jeddah, most notably missing out on an opportunity to pit under a virtual safety car as the pit lane was closed due to the location of Ricciardo’s stricken McLaren. 

“Well, the timing of the events through that [the VSC] meant there was no window where he could [stop],” Shovlin explained. “The car had stopped on track, they then deployed the Virtual Safety Car, but when Lewis came to the pit entry they closed the pit lane so you are not allowed to come into the pits. 

“After they cleared the car, they then removed the Virtual Safety Car and after that, they opened the pit lane. So, as it happens, there was no window where he could have got in and taken that much shorter pit stop under the Safety Car.”

Shovlin also discussed the teams strategy options with Hamilton and his pace was good enough for a P6 finish in the right circumstances.

“The intention with Lewis was to try and pull [the McLarens] out of the window and we were slowly doing that. I think the lap that we would have stopped at would have been somewhere in that 39 to 40 region but the intention was always to try and clear those McLarens, then we would have been racing with Valtteri [Bottas] and the two Alpine cars. Our prediction said that we had enough pace to pass them on track and that would have enabled Lewis to get up to P6 in the final standings.”