Toto Wolff said that if Mercedes can lower their cars further at Silverstone, they will be very competitive at the British GP.
Toto Wolff said that if Mercedes can lower their cars further at Silverstone, they will be very competitive at the British GP.
The W13 has been one of Mercedes' most difficult cars since its return to the sport as a factory team in 2010, and it has certainly been the trickiest since the turbo-hybrid era began in 2014.
In fact, it is clear that the car has pace, but only in certain settings, and finding those settings each weekend has proven to be very difficult, with each track presenting different problems.
Clearly, when the track surface is more uneven, they seem to have more problems, but in Canada they seem to have found a decent solution, with their race pace good enough to deliver a P3 with Lewis Hamilton and a P4 with George Russell not far behind the Red Bull and Ferrari leaders.
After the GP, Wolff was evidently pleased with what he saw and was asked by how his prospects looked for Silverstone with a track surface that really has no undulations compared to some of the circuits F1 has visited recently.
"If we can reduce the car height, we can be competitive. After Barcelona we were hoping to be back in the championship fight...so we'll see."
It is perhaps not surprising to hear Wolff being cautious to get too optimistic, given what followed after Barcelona in Monaco and Azerbaijan.
The Mercedes was fast there on a smooth surface, but Monaco and Baku undulating and with downhill-only corners the car did poorly, but it's clear that while there's still work to do, the car performs much better on conventional tracks without a lot of undulations.
Still, the Silverbacks seem to be getting there and if they can run the car low at Silverstone, Wolff suggests that they might even fight for the race win.