Mercedes technical director Mike Elliott has announced improvements for their home race at Silverstone, but admits that in a normal race they will still find it very difficult to fight for victory and must stay focused on continuously improving their car.
Mercedes is quite far from the best teams of Red Bull and Ferrari this season, and they showed the best performance in Barcelona on a track that is very flat, which suited their track configuration, and they were helped by the choice of tires and very high track temperature.
After two tough races on the street tracks in Monaco and Azerbaijan, Mercedes was slightly more competitive in Canada and Hamilton and Russell finished third and fourth in a race in which Perez gave up and Leclerc started 19th due to a penalty for taking a fourth engine.
The next race of the championship is at Silverstone, which is traditionally a very good track for Mercedes, and despite the announced new parts for the F1 W13, the team does not expect a dramatic change in competitiveness.
“One thing you can be sure of, and that is that we will push as hard as we can,” Elliott said in the race announcement.
“We will bring new parts to Silverstone, we will try to develop the car, get a little more speed out of the car we have, as well as the new parts we will bring.”
“I think at the same time we have to be honest with ourselves and say that we are, at the moment, something behind the leading teams of Ferrari and Red Bull. And in a normal race, I think it will be difficult. “
“I think Silverstone is a track that will suit us a little better, like Barcelona, but it might be a little harder.”
“No matter what, we will put as much pressure as we can. Our drivers will do their best because we want to return to victory. ”
“We want to win for the team, we want to win for you fans so we’ll see what happens.”
Mercedes F1 boss and co-owner Toto Wolff agrees that they still have a lot of work to do before returning to levels of competitiveness from previous seasons.
“Silverstone has been a good track for us in the past and the track is flatter than the last three, but it’s not Barcelona,” Wolff said.
“We need to manage our own expectations, work hard, analyze data and find solutions, not only for Silverstone but for the tracks that follow.”
Head of racing operations Andrew Shovlin finds it hard to know what to expect on each next track from their car.
“It’s really hard to know what to expect from each track with this car, but in Canada we’ve certainly gotten the most out of it,” Shovlin said.
“Brackley and Brixworth will continue to push hard, there’s a lot we can improve on the car and bring it to potential, and the race in Canada has given us even more encouragement to keep pushing and closing the gap.”
Mercedes holds a solid third place in the constructors’ standings and is closer to Ferrari (40 points difference) than Ferrari Red Bull (76 points difference).
