Mercedes will bring the final aero developments to the W13 at the United States Grand Prix for both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. While main rivals Red Bull do not plan any more major upgrades to their car for the remainder of 2022 , Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, says the team is introducing upgrades in Austin as they still battle Ferrari for second in the Constructors Championship. The upgrades are also being introduced with the focus on learning for the 2023 car, after the team's Technical Director, Mike Elliott revealed they are optimistic about its prospects . “It's [Austin] our final step of aero development and that will hopefully give us a bit more performance but importantly with every step, we are learning more and more and that learning we can carry into next year," he explained. "Also there is a few bits where we have taken some weight out of components that will hopefully get the car closer to the weight limit."
Qualifying difficult for the team to predict
Even with the upgrades Shovlin says it will be difficult to predict where Mercedes will be on pace at Austin, given the swings in performance between Singapore and Suzuka. He added: "It's very difficult for us to predict where we are going to be. In Singapore Lewis was awfully close to pole position, yet in Suzuka both cars had a big gap to the front. "Our race pace has been reasonably strong, so if we can make a step, hopefully we can get into the fight with the Ferraris and the Red Bulls. "But qualifying for us is the really difficult one to predict at the moment. As I said a lot of it is about learning and we are certainly going to give it our best shot in the final four races.”
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