Shovlin explains big difference between Russell and Hamilton in FP2

Lewis Hamilton managed to record his best Friday practice result of the season, by finishing second on the timesheets in FP2 for the British Grand Prix. In front of his home crowd at Silverstone, the Mercedes seemed to be much better after a range of upgrades to the car including a new floor. However, George Russell was a little bit further off the pace in P8. 

Steps forward

Mercedes have made changes to the floor, rear wing, brake ducts and much more. The side of the floor looks remarkably different with plenty of detail and edges. Engineer Andrew Shovlin was delighted to see Hamilton back towards the top of the Friday but remains cautious of what their rivals are hiding. 

"It does look like we've made a step forward because we're not normally up near the top on a Friday. I suspect they'll be more to come from Ferrari and Red Bull but the long-run work was encouraging as well. Normally we see half a second, 7 8 tenths on the long run, but that didn't look like it was there. Probably a bit is the circuit which is suiting the car. There's a lot to work on but hopefully, the updates pushed us in the right direction," Shovlin told Sky Sports. 

There was a bit of a difference between Russell and Hamilton. The young British driver has often finished ahead of the seven-time World Champion through the opening months of the season, but today Russell was a few tenths behind. Shovlin goes on to explain the difference as Mercedes tried different tyres. 

"The cars started identical today. We wanted to look at both the tyres, George had the hard tyre and he was struggling with the grip. Difficult in these cooler conditions which set him back. But on the long run it was coming together nicely. They did diverge on set-up a little bit," Shovlin added.