Mercedes chief makes revelation over failed F1 upgrade

Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin has explained how its rear suspension upgrade was awaiting test results whilst it was being used on-track. 

At Imola, a new design was introduced, but since the start of the European season, Mercedes' performance has tailed off, with only one podium since it started, for George Russell in Hungary. 

Kimi Antonelli's form has also suffered as a result of the difficult W16, which had the offending suspension removed for the Monaco and Spanish GPs before it was reintroduced in Canada, where the team scored a one-three result.

Boss Toto Wolff has explained that the Imola upgrade "will end in a bin somewhere" as trackside engineering director Shovlin gave further details about the difficulties the team has faced with the parts.

"At the time it came in, we had some issues in the laboratory work we were doing that meant some of the test results were arriving quite a bit after it had run on track," Shovlin told media, including RacingNews365. 

"We certainly had it under the microscope at that point, because it was off the car in Monaco and Barcelona, and then we reintroduced it for Montreal.

"Now, in a way, that might have been inconvenient that we reintroduced it at our best race weekend of the year, and we're still going through the data from lab testing to understand what it was [that was wrong].

"The reality is, if we prove that there is a problem, we will learn from the experience, as it is always quite difficult to make suspension changes to existing components because everything is a compromise.

"But if that is the case, then we will learn from it and it will be useful in our knowledge of making the next car."