The 70th Anniversary Grand Prix was a great race to watch if you were anyone but a Mercedes fan. Both Silver Arrows drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas struggled with tire management.

The heat caused severe blistering on both the W11’s. As a result, the pace was never quite there.

But credit to Red Bull and Max Verstappen. The former set up a brilliant strategy to start the race on the hards while the latter managed his tires gloriously. All that culminated in Verstappen’s maiden win of the season.

With the hot weather conditions, many wondered why Mercedes didn’t start on hard tires. Surely, they could have achieved a front-row lock-out even with the hard tires, right?

If these questions were lingering in your head post-race, then don’t worry, Mercedes F1’s Chief Race Engineer, Andrew Shovlin, has you covered.

Shovlin said, “When we had those discussions, we still decided that we still wanted to start both our cars on the medium tire. Now, that’s the tire with less life in it.

“(But) we thought it would be a good tire off the line, it would have good initial grip, good initial pace. If you start on the hard and there is an early safety car you’re then drawn into running that medium for a longer period during the race.”

Mercedes anticipated Red Bull’s tire strategy but admit that their race pace wouldn’t have changed the outcome

Shovlin reveals that Mercedes expected Red Bull to start the race on the hard compound tires. According to Shovlin, the hard tires definitely had the pace to perform well in qualifying and it gave Red Bull an out-of-the-box option, something they used to their advantage during the race.

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However, he doesn’t think that starting on the hard tires would have helped Mercedes to come out on top. “We didn’t have the pace really to compete with them.

“We were having to drive slowly to look after the tires and fundamentally that was how they won the race, regardless of start tire,” said Shovlin.

The tire blistering is something Mercedes will be wary of even in Spain. With another race expected to take place under high track temperatures, Mercedes can’t afford to lose more ground to Red Bull.

Will they find a way to solve what seems to be their only weakness? Or will they suffer at the hands of their tires once again?

We’ll find out soon enough.