Lewis Hamilton receives a major blow to his record-breaking British GP win hopes as technical director Mike Elliot gives a reality check.
Mercedes this season hasn’t started at their usual level. After nine races, the Silver Arrows is yet to win a race, something for the first time for them in the turbo-hybrid era.
However, in the free practice sessions at Silverstone, Mercedes have been giving promising results. Hamilton brought in back-to-back P2 on Friday, and then in FP3, the Mercedes duo sealed the third-best team tag.
Moreover, Hamilton would be having a record-breaking win at Silverstone that would mark his ninth win at a particular venue, which has never been achieved before.
However, these hopes have been quashed by Mercedes technical director Mike Elliot. Reacting to Christian Horner’s comments that Mercedes could be in the run for Sunday, Elliot claims the claim is a bit far-fetched.
“I hope he’s right, [but] we’re realistic,” said Elliott. “We had a decent showing in the short-run pace but I’m sure Ferrari and Red Bull have still got more to come.”
“The long-run looked pretty encouraging but there wasn’t a huge amount of laps done and it’s difficult to judge from that. If we’ve made a decent step forward in pace, we’ll be happy with that and we can keep chipping away and building from there.
“A win on Sunday would be really nice but that’s probably a little bit far for us.”
Upgrades to Lewis Hamilton are not a miracle
Mercedes have been constantly bringing in new upgrades to elevate their performances. However, Elliot reveals that they are progressive but won’t bring in miracles.
“They’re not a miracle that is suddenly going to jump us to the front of the grid but they’re a good step in the right direction,” Elliot said. “What is pleasing for me is that we’ve been able to develop those and bring them without making any of our problems worse.”
“Some of the bouncing problems that we had earlier in the season.
Also read: Kevin Magnussen warned to steer clear of the Mercedes driver ahead of British GP
