Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was not present at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (due to his son\u2019s karting race); he was represented in Baku by Bradley Lord.<\/p>\n
And the deputy Mercedes team principal confirmed what was inevitable: George Russell will have to face a grid penalty, perhaps as early as Malaysia. If that doesn\u2019t work out, then in Austin, because in Singapore \u2013 where overtaking is particularly tricky \u2013 a grid penalty would be unwise.<\/p>\n
Lord explains: \u201cThe engine change on Russell\u2019s car is coming. We\u2019re currently trying to work out the best plan and clarify how we can coordinate it with the option we have under the ADUO to introduce an updated engine on our side. The timing varies. For a while, we thought we might be able to change the engine on George\u2019s car as early as Baku. But we\u2019re always thinking about the best result. That\u2019s why there\u2019s been no change yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, we\u2019ll manage to tie all this together at one of the upcoming races and ensure that, from here until the end of the season, he only has to serve one penalty group. Kimi, of course, has already served his penalty for fitting a new engine at Monza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s frustrating for Russell to know he has to change his engine, but I reckon he\u2019d rather have a new, updated and more powerful one. So that should put him in a good position for the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lord on the improved aerodynamics: \u201cIt\u2019s not that easy to introduce an update to these cars and ensure it automatically delivers the results we\u2019re hoping for, but hopefully it will be a decent step forward. We\u2019ll be lining up with a fairly comprehensive aerodynamic package.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe circuit in Malaysia places high demands on aerodynamics, so it\u2019s a challenge for the car and, of course, for the drivers too, particularly when it comes to tyre condition. It\u2019s also something of a home race for us, thanks to our title sponsor Petronas. As a result, there are plenty of activities planned in the run-up to the race, and we\u2019re naturally hoping for good results on the track as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was not present at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix (due to his son\u2019s karting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-911811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}