Was there any frustration that the team was not able to see how the car performed in a normal dry qualifying session?
“To be honest, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the frustration that we’d be feeling if we brought a load of parts and we felt like we’ve gone backwards,” said Shovlin.
“Because as I said the thing that worries us is not having a development direction. The race pace was okay on Friday, I think we made a step forward overnight, it remains to be seen where we drop out. But if we have, it should be at least a fun race for us if we can keep up with the Red Bulls and the Ferraris for once.”
It’s not too simplistic to suggest that after all the firefighting of the last few months, trying to understand the car and address fundamental issues, and then getting through those awkward street tracks, the team now has a handle on things.
“In the first few races, we were just of fighting to survive”
And it can now properly start to address performance and get closer to the frontrunners on a regular basis, and in other words do the things that the team is usually so good at doing.
“In the first few races, we were literally just sort of fighting to survive,” Shovlin admitted. “And the drivers were fighting to survive with a car that was incredibly difficult to work with. But we did a decent job there of scoring points, actually and picking up on the opportunities when others were unreliable.
“Barcelona was useful for us because we had something that wasn’t bouncing around on every circuit that we went to. But clearly that run of three street tracks highlighted another weakness. And to be honest, we’re just going through it, looking for the problems, and then we’ll try and apply our engineering skills to solving them.
“But I would say that the route that we want to take now is becoming increasingly clear. And that’s encouraging from a development point of view. I think this update is the first proper update along the line that we started to create in Barcelona, this is the first one that we brought to the track, and it’s encouraging to see that it’s worked.”
As Shovlin suggested the Spanish GP update package was a crucial step in the learning process, giving the team a direction in which to go.
“We changed concept in Barcelona perhaps in terms of the way the car was working to try and solve some of that bouncing. And whilst our issues with bouncing quite rightly generated a lot of interest in the early races because we were at the worst end of the pack, if you look at us here, I think we’re actually near the better end of it, we’re certainly not the best, but we’re a long way from being the worst.