An unusual penalty could hit Mercedes with a contingency plan in place

‘Fingers crossed’ Mercedes drivers won’t suffer another major crash before the end of the season, not because of a budget cap, but because the team has made use of both curfew exceptions in F1 2024.

This season, Formula 1 teams only have two jokers, giving them two opportunities to break the curfew without being penalized. Mercedes used both of his jokers.

Mercedes will face the pit lane if they break the curfew again

The first was used in Hungary when, dissatisfied with the balance of the cars, Mercedes mechanics worked extra hours to find solutions.

Lewis Hamilton went into qualifying in fifth place and finished on the podium in his W15, while George Russell was caught by rain during a red flag and was immediately eliminated in Q1. He recovered and finished eighth in the Grand Prix.

The two-time Grand Prix winner was the reason for Mercedes to impose a second curfew as his W15 required a new chassis when he recorded a 35G crash in second practice at the Mexican Grand Prix.

The team worked overnight to repair Russell’s carthe Briton’s fifth place in qualifying and the Grand Prix.

It was, as Mercedes director of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin put it, “a very, very late night in Mexico City trying to put George’s car together.”

“We had to break the curfew,” he added in Mercedes’ post-race summary of the Mexican Grand Prix, “which can only be done twice a year. This was our second one, so that the luxury would not stay with us until the end of the season. The team worked until the early morning hours, came back, slept a few hours and came back again.

“It was a great job in the garage. Once Lewis’ crew finished working on the car, they all headed to George’s car. Replacing the chassis actually starts from scratch, but in most cases both teams worked on it, which achieves the almost impossible feat of building a car in a few hours overnight.”

F1 2024: Mercedes team-mates’ head-to-head stats

F1 2024: Record direct qualifying between team members

F1 2024: Statistics of head-to-head races between team members

Mercedes hopes neither Russell nor Hamilton suffers another big crash on Friday before the season ends in Abu Dhabi, as the next time the team breaks the curfew it could result in penalties for both cars. Shovlin revealed that in the event of Friday’s accident, the team would devote track time during third practice rather than working on the car overnight.

“If we had to do it on another Friday night, the penalty is actually defined in the sporting regulations and it means that both cars will start from the pit lane,” Shovlin explained.

“The reality is you would do anything to make sure you didn’t have to mess it up again and in practice that would probably mean your car wasn’t ready for FP3. You can come whenever you can on Saturday morning and then just work as long as you can for FP3 to hopefully get the car ready for qualifying, but fingers crossed we won’t be in that situation.

Russell was also a disaster the final blow to Mercedes’ budget constraintsToto Wolff reveals Mercedes will upgrade the W15 in Brazil with a new floor, but that’s the end of the season.

“However, for cost-constrained countries, the situation is difficult,” he told the media PlanetF1.com. “So these three fistulas have put us behind, and the one that happened the day before yesterday was certainly huge. We had to change. We had to opt for a completely new chassis, which is a huge hit in terms of cost savings, and we’ll probably have to limit ourselves to what we put in the car.

“So we will have two packages of improvements in Brazil, two floors, but that’s basically it, nothing else will happen. We have some limitations in the areas where we have to be creative.

“Can we cope with this? – And there is definitely an impact. There is an impact on how many development parts we can put on the car because the answer is zero.”

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