Andrew Shovlin : “The [Jeddah] track should suit the car”

Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of claiming three successive victories for the first time in a year are to be given a major boost ahead of the inaugural Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.

Following back-to-back wins in Brazil and Qatar, Hamilton has moved to within eight points of championship leader Max Verstappen with two races remaining. The first of those is at the newly created Jeddah Street Circuit on December 3-5 that has proclaimed itself to be the fastest street track in the world.

On paper the venue will favour Mercedes, with the team to revert to the engine that powered Hamilton to victory at Interlagos where he made up 24 places in 95 laps across the sprint and São Paulo Grand Prix following an engine change.

Assessing Mercdes’ confidence going into the Jeddah race, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said:

“It is another unknown and we have seen pretty big swings of performance over the recent races. Now, if we look at the track in Saudi, I think it should suit us. For Lewis, we have got the more powerful engine to go in the car so that is going to give him a useful boost.”

Hamilton is currently down to his last two power units for the campaign, with Shovlin confirming the “less powerful” of the pair was used in Qatar.

Despite issues with PUs this season, which have affected customers McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams, as well as the works team, Shovlin insists they are “in a good place at the moment”.

Are Mercedes too confident ?

Shovlin does not want to get too carried away, however, given situations in the past.

“The [Jeddah] track should suit the car but we probably would have said that in Austin,” added Shovlin.

“We should have been able to put together a decent set-up and take the fight to Red Bull but they had a bit of an edge there. We are always cautious about going to a race thinking it is all going to go our way.

“What we do know, though, are the things we have to get right on the set-up, what we have to get right on the tyres and how they are working.

“That is what we are going to be busy doing over the next few days, just making sure we have taken every possible opportunity to arrive there in good shape.

“With a new circuit, arriving in good shape is such a big thing, from the learning curve. If you have a good car to start with you can just improve it from there.”