Mercedes the latest team to break curfew after Hungarian Grand Prix breach

Mercedes used up its first curfew breach of the season in Hungary.

Mercedes used up the first of its permitted curfew breaches on Friday night at the Hungaroring, with operational staff remaining at the circuit.

F1 has strict rules on when staff are permitted within circuit confines, and Mercedes became the latest team to breach the curfew on Friday night – although it had nothing to do with the disruption caused earlier in the day by the global computer systems issues caused by a CrowdStrike outage.

Mercedes curfew breach at the Hungarian Grand Prix

On Friday morning, Mercedes’ preparations for practice were disrupted by a computer systems outage brought about as systems partner CrowdStrike endured a nightmare day as a global systems update brought about worldwide systems outages.

The Formula 1 teams, the FIA, and FOM were largely unaffected by the outage, with Mercedes able to hit the track promptly at the start of first practice after a morning spent implementing fixes to its computer systems.

“We’ve had great support from them and all our partners,” Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin said after first practice.

“There was a bit of work that we had to do. We’ve got a lot of computers around the garage and in pit walls and things here, and those all needed updating, but we’ve worked through that. The impact in FP1 was minimal if not nil. So, as I said, it created a bit of work, but we’re back where we need to be now.”

On Saturday morning, the FIA confirmed Mercedes had used up the first of its two permitted curfew breaches of the year, with personnel linked to the operation of the car being within the confines of the circuit during the 11-and-a-half-hour period after 10 pm local time. The curfew lifted at 6:30 am, three hours before the scheduled start time for third practice.

Despite the coincidental timing of having its computer systems affected that very day, Mercedes’ curfew breach was unrelated to CrowdStrike’s issues – a team spokesperson confirmed to PlanetF1.com that it had been planned owing due to a larger than usual amount of servicing to be done.

Every team is permitted two such breaches a year, meaning breaches, if desired, can be planned in advance throughout the year without any punishment from the FIA.

Mercedes isn’t the first team to have a curfew breach this season – Williams used up the first of its allowance at the Australian Grand Prix, Aston Martin had its first at the Japanese Grand Prix, Alpine had its first at the Chinese Grand Prix, while a curfew exemption was granted to Aston Martin and Ferrari in Miami as Aston Martin sought a right to review Fernando Alonso’s clash with Carlos Sainz in China.

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Lewis Hamilton: High temperatures made W15 feel ‘just as bad’

While Mercedes has made huge strides with the W15 through recent upgrades, an ongoing weakness appears to be how the car responds in hot temperatures.

With the Hungaroring sweltering over 30 degrees Celsius this weekend, Hamilton was downbeat about how his Mercedes was handling following Friday’s practice day as he finished in 10th place.

“It felt just as bad as it normally does when it’s hot,” Hamilton said.

At the start of his interview, Hamilton mentioned the hot temperatures several times before saying, “The car just hasn’t felt good setup-wise, but I think we have an idea why.

“We’ll just work overnight. But not the best so far.”

Asked how Mercedes had approached its alterations between practice sessions, Hamilton admitted the team had opted for “little tweaks.”

“But the car was pretty much the same,” Hamilton said, “and there’s a particular thing that we left that we changed into this weekend that we probably need to go back on.”

He did not elaborate on what exactly that change was.

“But yeah, it’s all relatively close otherwise. We couldn’t do the pace of the other guys today, but the long-run pace was pretty decent at the end.”

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