Mercedes are adamant that they can continue their progress towards the front of the grid after the summer break. The reigning Constructors' Champions head into the summer break off the back of their best results of the season. They achieved double podium finishes at the French and Hungarian Grands Prix, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finishing second and third respectively in both events. Russell also secured his first F1 pole position at the Hungaroring, and Mercedes' first of the season. Their race pace in Hungary was particularly impressive, with Mercedes actively overtaking cars from Red Bull and Ferrari, instead of inheriting positions due to errors from rival teams. Mercedes' Trackside Engineering Director, AndrewShovlin, believed fighting Red Bull and Ferrari at the Hungaroring was evidence of one of their best races this season. “This last one was particularly satisfying because we weren’t relying on the misfortune of anyone dropping out with a reliability problem," Shovlin said in Mercedes' Akkodis Race Debrief . "The most satisfying thing though is to see where the car is in terms of pace now in qualifying and in the race. "We had a lot of ground to make up from the start of the year, we've been working really hard trying to bring bits to every race and it is really satisfying now to see that we are racing with the Ferraris, with the Red Bulls right to the front.”
'More pace coming' from Mercedes
Mercedes' performances in the last couple of races are a stark contrast to their early season woes. Despite taking occasional podium finishes, the Brackley-based team had performance and setup issues with their temperamental W13. Updates and a better understanding of the car have brought Mercedes closer to the front, and Shovlin promised more developments would be brought for the upcoming races. “We've got more coming," confirmed Shovlin. "We are trying to bring some performance to Spa that will hopefully close that gap, we haven’t got far to go now. But we'll keep developing the car for a little while now. "We're quite excited though, the last few races have been the most fun we've had all year and we are just hoping that we can take that extra step because we definitely want to be winning races in the near future, so we are working hard to try and achieve that.”
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