Mercedes note “big difference” in Hungary which could thwart F1 win chances

Mercedes are cautious over their chances of replicating their Silverstone performance at this weekend’s F1 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Mercedes have enjoyed a remarkable upturn in form in recent weeks, taking two victories.

At the British Grand Prix last time out, Mercedes locked the front row out on merit and led a 1-2 during the dry phase of the race.

Lewis Hamilton converted that into his first F1 victory since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, confirming Mercedes’ progress is genuine.

However, with the Hungaroring track layout completely different to Silverstone’s - and track conditions expected to be significantly warmer, Mercedes are unsure whether they will be able to compete with Red Bull and McLaren.

Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Mercedes trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin said: “Well we certainly don’t think we won the last one, let’s win the next one. It almost makes you a bit more nervous that maintaining that performance we had in Silverstone is going to be very difficult.

“If you look at what is the big difference for Hungary is probably this is the test of whether or not we have got on top of our long run performance in hot conditions because in Barcelona and in Austria, we couldn’t match Lando or Max on the long run - both those two cars were well ahead of us. We hopefully have made a bit of progress.”

Mercedes were comfortably behind the top two teams in Spain and Austria - where conditions were much warmer.

While George Russell was able to win at the Red Bull Ring, thanks to Max Verstappen’s clash with Lando Norris, there was a clear deficit.

Shovlin is unsure Mercedes have reduced that gap just yet.

“If you look at the size of the gap at those two previous races, I’d be surprised if we can pull it in that significantly but then again, we were surprised by the first stint at Silverstone,” he added.

“We didn’t think in that dry bit of the race we’d be able to break away. We thought that it would be like Barcelona where George got into the lead and then he’s got the two of them in his gearbox.

“That track throws up different demands. We can simulate some of those problems. We know the type of issues it will throw our way. We will just put our effort into the preparation side and make sure we can start with the best setup that we can. How do we develop it from there?”