Why Mercedes is feeling 'nervous' ahead of Hungarian GP

Mercedes is feeling "nervous" about maintaining its Silverstone form heading into the Hungarian Grand Prix, says Andrew Shovlin.

Lewis Hamilton banked victory at the British GP last time out, his first win in 945 days as the W15 continues to show improved pace after the team had qualified one-two with George Russell on pole.

Despite its troubles in the wider ground effect era, Mercedes has taken both pole positions at the Hungaroring, with Hamilton taking a record nine poles and eight wins in his career at the track outside of Budapest.

He took pole in 2023, as the team searches for a third straight win this year, with Russell taking victory in Austria. 

But trackside engineering chief Shovlin has detailed why Mercedes is not getting carried away and feels "nervous" heading into round 13 of the season.

"We certainly don't think that because we won the last one, let's go and win the next one," Shovlin told the F1 Nation podcast. 

"It almost makes you a bit more nervous as maintaining that performance we had at Silverstone is going to be very difficult. 

"The big test for Hungary is whether or not we have got on top of our long run performance in hot conditions, because in Barcelona and Austria, we couldn't match Lando or Max on the long runs, both those cars were well ahead of us. 

"Hopefully now we've made a bit of progress, but if I look at the size of the gap in those two races, I'd be surprised if we can pull that in significantly. 

"But we surprised ourselves with the first stint at Silverstone, we didn't think in the dry bit of the race, we'd be able to break away. We thought it would be like Barcelona where George got into the lead and then he's got two of them on his gearbox.

"But the track throws up different demands, we can simulate those problems, we what type of issues it will throw up and we'll put our effort into the preparation side and making sure that we start with the best set-up we can."

Mercedes respond to Monaco comparisons

Owing to its tight, twisty nature, the Hungaroring is often described as similar to Monaco, but Shovlin dismissed that theory, focusing on the wide range of corners found in Hungary.

"It's totally different to Monaco, and even just the tarmac being quite different to Monaco gives you different characteristics," he said.

"They are proper corners, there's low speed but there's some fast corners, Turn four into turn five is pretty quick, and it's a proper circuit, it's just got short straights.

"There are also those 180-degree corners, those are ones that when you get your car nicely balanced, then there's an element of how the driver drives it here as well.

"In those last three corners on the track, you can make a huge amount of time there. If the car is stable with that dream combination of stability, but also it turns well when they want it to. 

"When you have a car that that's got a messy balance and the back end is snapping away and it gets loads of understeer at the apex, you lose a huge amount of time. 

"Those corners there is absolutely nothing at Monaco that looks anything like them, but it is a good circuit where there is a lot of connected corners which again, if the car is working well and it's balanced, you can find a lot of time.

"It is a track where arriving in the final sector with your tyres in a decent temperature window is quite key, but like Silverstone Lewis has a pretty impressive record there. 

"So it would be wrong to not credit the driver with a bit of the performance around the track."