Mercedes reveal upgrades that aided Hamilton's British GP bounce back

Lewis Hamilton in his W12 — Photo: © LAT Images

British Grand Prix

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Mercedes reveal upgrades that aided Hamilton's British GP bounce back

Hamilton won his home race for the eighth time to break Red Bull's streak of victories

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Tuesday 20 July 2021 19:05

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has explained exactly the nature of the team's updates on the W12 that helped Lewis Hamilton win the British Grand Prix.

Entering the Silverstone weekend on the back of a five-race losing streak to Red Bull, Hamilton was fastest in qualifying on Friday evening at Silverstone as F1's new sprint format weekend commenced.

Although the seven-time champion surrendered pole to title rival Max Verstappen in the sprint event, victory came his way in controversial circumstances on Sunday.

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The much-talked-about upgrades were added to the car - the last for this season - which undoubtedly brought a measure of improved performance.

Describing what has changed, Shovlin said: "I don't really want to go into the absolute numbers here.

"But it was quite extensive in terms of front and rear cake-tins, all the area around the bargeboards, the floor, so quite a significant amount of work on the car.

"We had struggled at recent races, and they are circuits we have historically actually found quite difficult, certainly in recent years.

"The pace [at Silverstone] is a combination of two things. One is we are getting the car back on a circuit where it works well and we have also made a nice step in terms of aerodynamic performance.

"Those two together are really why you saw us able to take pole position on Friday."

Mercedes would have taken "long, hard look" at itself after failure

Silverstone has been a stronghold in F1 for Mercedes, with the team taking the previous nine pole positions at the circuit before Verstappen won the sprint.

Asked how much was at stake heading into the weekend, Shovlin replied: "The big one for us was really we had brought an update kit to the car.

"We were going to a circuit that historically has suited our car very well, certainly suited Lewis very well.

"The bit that was kind of quite frightening coming in was if we didn't perform here we would have to take a long, hard look at ourselves.

"So aside from the championship situation and the points that were at stake, [and] the need we had to make sure that gap wasn't going to grow any further, the big one was that we were absolutely desperate to see the car perform well and the team perform well.

"So it is hugely reassuring to have been able to demonstrate we are still in the fight for the championship."