Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been sent an honest warning by a Mercedes engineer ahead of the British Grand Prix. Hamilton and Russell have struggled to compete for wins this season and have fallen well behind both Red Bulls and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the race for the Drivers’ Championship.
And now, according to Auto, Motor Und Sport, a Mercedes engineer has claimed “no-set up in the world” will make the car as quick as Red Bull or Ferrari in a blow to either driver’s chances of winning their home race. They quoted an unnamed engineer as saying behind the scenes: “Our performance at the moment depends only on the set-up.
“But no set-up in the world will make this car a Red Bull or a Ferrari.” After Canada, Mercedes confirmed Hamilton and Russell will enjoy new upgrades at Silverstone next week in a bid to close the gap to the leaders.
The team’s technical director Mile Elliott said the team will “push as hard as they can” to ensure they can make progress at the British Grand Prix. However, he admitted it was likely the team would be a little bit behind” the frontrunners and it would be “tough” to secure a result under normal circumstances.
Elliott said: “We will be bringing new bits to Silverstone, we will be trying to push the car forward, trying to get some pace from the car we’ve got or from the package we’ve got as well as the new bits we are going to add to it.
“I think at the same time though we have to be honest with ourselves and say that at the moment we are just a little bit behind those front runners in Ferrari and Red Bull. And in a normal race I think it is going to be tough. I think Silverstone will be a circuit that suits us a little bit better, like Barcelona did, but maybe it will be just a little bit difficult. Whatever happens we will push as hard as we can.”
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed there was a lot of work going on at the factory to find a solution to the issues. He said the team were confident there was “lots to improve” which would soon be turned into car fixes.
He explained: “The team in Brackley and Brixworth will continue to push hard, there’s lots to improve on the car but that can be translated into potential and the race today has given us more encouragement to keep pushing to close that gap.”
