“We’re down to sort of pretty small developments”– Mercedes to incorporate new developments in the car ahead of the next races.
Mercedes were facing a massive deficit against Red Bull before going into Silverstone, and at that moment, they announced they are going to upgrade their cars before the British Grand Prix.
That actually worked wonders for them since they have obtained a 12-points lead in the constructors’ championship over Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton has an eight-point lead over Max Verstappen.
Now, amidst the break, Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin has announced the scope of minor developments, which they will introduce before the season resumes at the end of the month.
“It’s something we need to look at over the next few days,” said Shovlin. “We’re down to sort of pretty small developments now, to be honest,” he added.
“We did have the update kit in Silverstone, and that does look like it’s given us some useful performance. But then the car was working well in terms of where it was maintaining its tyre temperatures, and we had quite a nice balance with it.
“But to be honest, we’re surprised by it ourselves. I mean it’s a pleasant surprise, but we were surprised to have had that margin to pole for instance.”
Surprised by Red Bull’s decision
Shovlin then said that he was shocked by Red Bull’s decision to go with small rear-wings, which apparently gave them an advantage over the Milton-Keynes based team in pace.
“We thought this is a circuit that should suit them [Red Bull],” said Shovlin. “The other thing that always worries us when we come to a maximum downforce circuit is that we’re frequently running around on our max downforce wing and then they bring it out for the Monacos and for this place.”
“But maybe they couldn’t balance that. They went away from it on Saturday and for us, it seems odd that you would ever run anything other than your biggest rear wing here.”
“We don’t profess to know why they’re taking decisions on that car, but it could be that they were just struggling to get enough front end in it, on the big wing, and they dropped down onto the smaller one.”
