Why Mercedes' mistakes aren't a question of complacency

The Russian Grand Prix was an interesting one, if not so much from the racing itself but for the penalties being meted out to the drivers.

The most obvious five-second penalties were being handed out to drivers who transgressed the Turn 2 track limits and failed to take the line through bollards to rejoin the track safely. Whatever your thoughts on the corner itself, FIA race director Michael Masi's pre-race notes left little room for interpretation - a point reflected in the way Daniel Ricciardo owned up to his error when passing Esteban Ocon and told his engineer that he would simply drive faster to make up the time.

However, Lewis Hamilton was handed two five-second penalties for a much-less common infringement in twice performing his pre-race practice starts at a different location to that specified by Masi's notes. Just like in the Italian GP at Monza, when he made his first pitstop when the pits were closed, it would have dire consequences for his race.

Hamilton's thinking was sound: the rubber laid down at the end of the pitlane would not be representative of his grid slot. But the team should have been more aware of his intentions in just how far down the pitlane he was planning to go, and perhaps have checked what was allowed with the stewards.

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It's defence that the notes didn't exactly specify what constituted the designated area for practice starts was somewhat after the fact, especially given Andrew Shovlin's admission that Mercedes expected to be given a telling off by the FIA. But does this second instance of Hamilton being penalised for a rules breach in three races indicate complacency is beginning to creep into the Mercedes team, as hinted at by Red Bull boss Christian Horner?

"They [Mercedes] obviously have had some issues and when you're constantly at the front, it's easier sometimes to be the challenger team," he said.

"Sometimes complacency can slip in when you've had such a period of dominance."

That much is true and, certainly, it raises questions of who in the team should be responsible for being on top of the rules and regulations. In F1, these are split into two sections, technical and sporting. The former determines basically how the car should look and the latter anything from points awarded at the races to press conferences and how practice, qualifying and races should be run.

At least three of us - myself included - were watching the timing screens and completely missed the all important warnings

The technical regulations are the domain of the technical director and his team of engineers and design staff, whereas the sporting director and their team (if indeed the team has one dedicated to this purpose) should be aware of all the details in the sporting regulations.

Of course, race engineers have to be aware of both sets of regulations, but their main job is to manage the running of the car and relay information to the driver. During practice, it's all about the set-up of the car and which tyres to run. Nowadays, due to the way that the driver has to bring his tyres up to working temperature, the race engineer also informs the driver which other cars are approaching and who is on quick laps so that they can keep out of the way.

But there are other engineers involved too in checking the electronics and hydraulics. They are also feeding information to the race engineer, all of which means they have a lot to digest. Therefore, it falls to the sporting director to make sure the team operates within the regulations as set down by the FIA.

The stewards of each race may also introduce other restrictions which the teams will have to adhere to and each F1 team has a lot of people in senior positions watching the multiple screens ready to react to these messages.

Apart from the sporting director, as part of the trackside team there will be a senior track engineer, a chief engineer, the team manager, team principal and often the chief designer, most of whom should have a good grasp of the rules. Then there will be the support crews back at base, who are in constant dialogue with the trackside team.

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If I might digress a little and cite a recent situation within British GT; it's a similar situation but on a smaller scale. The team manager is in direct radio contact with the SRO stewards, who feed all the relevant information as to timing, penalties and if necessary, a summons to race control. They also relay information via the TSL timing screens.

At a recent three-hour race at the Donington GP circuit, the car that I was engineering received three warnings that the driver had exceeded track limits at Turn 7, McLean's. This was during the last hour of the race, when the driver was struggling with a long brake pedal and ran wide at the right-hander.

The point is, we're a small team of less than 10 people, but at least three of us - myself included - were watching the timing screens and completely missed the all important warnings, with the result that we were dealt with a 30 second penalty that dropped us two places. Was this a matter of complacency? I'd like to think not!

Following the mistake that Mercedes made at Monza, one would think that the team would be on maximum alert when dealing with the regulations not to get caught out again. In the aftermath of that frantic weekend, it emerged that AlphaTauri - the main beneficiary of Hamilton's 10s stop/go penalty there - has a "blonde American" AI system automatically configured to notify the team of any messages from race control.

This wouldn't have helped in Sochi - Mercedes was essentially let down on a point of communication between team and driver - but it seems that it was again caught with its eye off the ball on a point of detail.

However, as the British GT example shows, errors unfortunately do happen when the pressure is on. That's just as true of successful teams as those who aren't winning week after week. Remember, Hamilton was joined in pitting at Monza by Alfa Romeo - but the same criticism of being complacent couldn't be levied at the Swiss team.

Ultimately, the mark of a successful team is one that learns from its mistakes so Mercedes will no doubt learn from it and redouble its efforts to avoid a repeat in future.

Returning to British GT, here the deal is that three transgressions means you will get a penalty, so our 30-second penalty was the equivalent of 10 seconds for each. The F1 drivers should count themselves lucky!