Hamilton outlines staggering extent of Mercedes progress

Lewis Hamilton has claimed his Mercedes is now "better everywhere" and is confident he is in contention for regular F1 podiums. 

Following on from George Russell winning the Austrian Grand Prix, Russell and Hamilton secured first and second on the grid for the British Grand Prix.

It is the first time Mercedes locked out the front row since the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, a race in which Russell spearheaded a one-two.

Hamilton has explained how far the car has come since this season's opener, notably in the wake of an upgrade package introduced in Canada that has unlocked performance. 

"Everywhere," remarked Hamilton on the extent of the improvement to the car. "It's just better everywhere. 

"From Bahrain, the car felt terrible, and the progress that we made in terms of dialling and fine-tuning the car to optimise the aero package. 

"This team has never struggled to add performance, but where particularly they put that performance has always been, with this generation of car, a big question and where we're getting the downforce from. 

"But now they've done an amazing job, the engineers back at the factory."

Still behind rivals

The mixed conditions in qualifying did play in Mercedes' favour, along with a small mistake for Lando Norris in Q3 and damage to Max Verstappen's Red Bull. 

Whilst Russell did win the Austrian GP, Mercedes were much slower than Norris and Verstappen prior to their dramatic clash at Turn 3 late in the race.

Hamilton pointed this out after qualifying, and conceded that Red Bull and McLaren remain extremely fast. 

However, the seven-time F1 champion is hopeful that the unpredictable weather could play to the Silver Arrows' strengths. 

"We'd definitely take it, but these guys are still… Red Bull, particularly Max, and the McLarens are very, very, very fast," conceded Hamilton. 

"And in some ways, you saw in the last race they were quite a bit ahead of us. So I'm hoping that with the conditions, we can hold our own."