Mercedes director Andrew Shovlin believes Lewis Hamilton has had better wins in Formula 1 than his 98th Grand Prix in win at the 2021 Spanish Grand Prix. Despite claiming what turned out to be an easy win at the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, Mercedes' trackside director Shovlin looks for areas of improvement claiming even from Hamilton's perspective this wasn't one of the reigning champion's vintage moments. "Lewis did a great job, he's got so many brilliant wins under his belt but this probably wasn't one of them," Shovlin told select members of the media including RacingNews365.com . "He will say you could have done a better job at the start. He couldn't attack enough in the first stint but he actually felt he did stand a chance of getting him on track in the second stint, even without the stop. Shovlin proceeded to to highlight how the team should of been more cognizant of the benefits of a two-stop strategy. "That's the overriding thing we were thinking a one stop would be pretty straightforward," Shovlin explained. "We thought it would need some management but actually, we should have we should have gone in with a with a slightly different bias on the plan. There are plenty of things we can actually tidy up within our planning and our strategy side." The Mercedes man also explained when the team finally decided to make the call to switch Hamilton's strategy and how the German outfit feared Red Bull and Max Verstappen might actually beat them to the punch. "To be honest, when it came to the point that we pulled the trigger, we were probably nudging towards being worried that Max (Verstappen) was actually going to do it before us," Shovlin continued. "Looking at the degradation rate, hearing the comments, we get an idea of the wear on the cars, and what we thought was a bit of a long shot, certainly before the race and even in the earliest stages of the race but by that point, who were thinking, actually, this is this is the right thing to do." Mercedes and Hamilton have been in exceptional form this season. The team have claimed three out of a possible four wins this season and despite starting the season as underdogs have established themselves as the team to beat yet again.
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