Mercedes chief communications officer Bradley Lord has revealed that the Silver Arrows have no further "big upgrades" planned, in its fight with Ferrari and Red Bull for second.
The Brackley-based outfit has experienced a mixed opening 14 rounds, which has seen George Russell secure six podiums, including, a race victory in Canada.
Russell has led Mercedes to big points on a regular basis, with rookie Kimi Antonelli having struggled for consistency in recent rounds.
Antonelli did claim an podium also in the Canadian GP, but entered the summer break with six non-point finishes from eight races.
Like its rivals in the fight for second in the constructors' title, Mercedes has thrown considerable upgrade packages at its car; however, no further significant parts are being developed.
Lord confirmed that he would be "surprised" to see any team introduce a major package after the summer break, as most outfits start to increase its focus on the new regulations next year.
"Yeah, the big upgrades, you would be surprised to see anyone bringing big upgrades from this point onwards," Lord told select media including RacingNews365.
"It kind of slightly depends on the semantics of big whether that means lots of items on the list of declarations, or whether it means lap time and things like that.
"But, we often see that actually where the development items dry up, you can still make a lot of progress in your understanding and learning about the car, even with a relatively static configuration performance wise.
"So, we'll be aiming to do that and just race as hard as we can for the second part of the season. We're in a close fight with two other teams for ultimately, P2 in the championship, and we'll be giving it everything we've got to end up there at the end of the year."
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Mercedes eye P2
With 10 rounds remaining, Mercedes currently finds itself third in the constructors' title, whilst Ferrari is in second.
Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are all targeting second, with McLaren a comfortable distance ahead. McLaren sit 299 points ahead of the Scuderia.
The scrap for second is much closer, as Mercedes sit just 24 points adrift of Ferrari. Red Bull cannot be ruled out, but are 66 points behind the Maranello-based outfit.
Discussing second in the standings being the target, Lord added: "I think we've run second for a chunk of the season already. There's a small performance gap.
"The trend at the moment suggests that that we're going in the wrong direction.
"But, yeah, I think if we can unpick the steps and remove what has become more challenging for the drivers with the car, then there's no reason to think we can't be in absolutely taking that fight to Ferrari and to Red Bull for the rest of the year."
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