Mercedes pair thrilled by "massive difference" in car after front row lock-out · RaceFans

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell stated small modifications to the configuration of their Mercedes have made a serious distinction to a automobile which was solely the fifth-quickest firstly of the 12 months.

Russell beat Hamilton to pole place for the British Grand Prix at present. It’s the first time Mercedes have locked out the entrance row of the grid based mostly on qualifying instances because the technical rules modified in 2022.

After two seasons pursuing an identical automobile design philosophy, Mercedes modified their method for this 12 months. Since then they’ve regularly improved their automobile’s efficiency.

Russell took pole place for the Canadian Grand Prix, albeit after setting an an identical lap time to Max Verstappen, and received the Austrian Grand Prix after the Pink Bull driver collided with Lando Norris.

After main the staff to their first one-two in a standard qualifying session because the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Russell stated minor tweaks have made a major distinction to the W15’s efficiency.

“We’ve made some small modifications which have had a huge impact,” he stated. “We knew from the beginning of this 12 months [that] the baseline of this automobile is considerably higher than what we’ve had in earlier years.

“However we went from having an ‘oversteer automobile’ final 12 months, then to an ‘understeer automobile’ this 12 months. And now we’ve simply dialled it again and located the comfortable medium.

Advert | Develop into a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

“Once you’ve obtained the stability in a great place, the tyre temperatures are in the precise window, and the lap time simply actually snowballs positively. It hasn’t been a considerable change, nevertheless it’s made an enormous distinction to the lap time.”

Hamilton agreed the staff has made a “large distinction” to its automobile’s efficiency in latest races.

“It’s simply higher all over the place,” he stated. “[In] Bahrain, for instance, the automobile felt horrible, and… we made [progress] when it comes to dialling and fine-tuning the automobile to optimise the aero bundle.”

He believes the staff has lastly been capable of channel its improvement potential in a helpful route with a floor effect-era automobile.

“This staff has by no means struggled so as to add efficiency, however the place significantly they put that efficiency has at all times been, with this era of automobile, has been a giant query and the place we’re getting the downforce from. However now they’ve performed an incredible job, the engineers again on the manufacturing unit.”

Nevertheless Hamilton sounded a word of warning that Mercedes haven’t but proved as aggressive as Pink Bull and McLaren in race trim.

Advert | Develop into a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

“We’ll positively take it at present, however Pink Bull, significantly Max, and the McLarens are very, very, very quick. And in some methods, you noticed within the final race, they had been fairly a bit forward of us.

“So I’m hoping that tomorrow, with the situations, we will maintain our personal.”