James Vowles, Mercedes' chief strategist, expects a complicated weekend in Hungary due to the German team's difference in pace to the leaders
Mercedes claimed its first double podium in 2022 at the French GP last Sunday (24) and has been showing good race pace. But the German team is still unable to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull in qualifying. Now, in Hungary, a track with few overtaking points, the Brackley-based team knows it needs to perform well on Saturday to take advantage of the car's potential on Sunday.
"I am incredibly pleased to see that people are getting carried away. Motorsport is capable of creating some of the highest highs you can experience and also some of the lowest lows. But we're still not where we need to be to win, that's the short answer to that, especially, for example, in qualifying pace and Hungary will expose that weakness," explained James Vowles, Mercedes' chief strategist.
"We are moving forward and I see progress, and we can see that also in how we move forward in the next few races, but in Budapest we need to be realistic. We have a strong race car, but we may not be able to use everything depending on the conditions that are presented to us. We need to do a better job than we have been doing to make sure we are qualifying where the car should be, which is at the front," stressed the British engineer.
Mercedes managed to have a race pace close to Ferrari and Red Bull in the races in Spain, England, and France, but is still fighting with Alpine and McLaren in qualifying. With an extremely reliable car, the German team keeps collecting good points, but knows where it needs to improve the car to really get into the fight for victories in Formula 1 in 2022.
"I think at the moment we are clearly improving the car race by race and our race pace is getting there. But not in qualifying. We are struggling to really get into contention with them and there will be certain tracks, like Paul Ricard and Silverstone, where we can use that race pace to our advantage," Vowles said.
"It's very difficult in Budapest if you start at the back to get back to the front on the grid. There are opportunities, it's just more difficult. We're here to improve and move forward, but we're not there yet. We need others to make mistakes to take advantage and move forward," James concluded.
Formula 1 returns next Sunday (31), for the HungarianGrand Prix, with complete coverage byGRANDE PRÊMIO. The 13th round of the World Championship will be the last before the traditional European summer break.