Mercedes would be ‘naive’ to expect Silverstone pace repeat in Hungary

Mercedes Formula 1 trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin says the team would be “naive” to expect a repeat of the performance level it enjoyed at Silverstone during this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

Lewis Larkam

28 Jul 2021

Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W12.
© xpbimages.com

An upgrade package helped Mercedes close the gap to Red Bull at Silverstone as Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in qualifying and went on to win the British Grand Prix for an eighth time after fighting back from a 10-second time penalty for causing a controversial collision with main rival Max Verstappen.

It marked Mercedes’ first victory since May’s Spanish Grand Prix and brought to an end Red Bull’s impressive run of five successive wins. Having played a key role in aiding Hamilton's win, Valtteri Bottas came home third to complete the podium behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

However, Shovlin is expecting a “bruised” Red Bull to hit back at the high-downforce Hungaroring, which on paper should play to the strengths of the RB16B more than Mercedes’ W12.

“This is one of our best tracks, so it would be naive of us to think that we could go there and expect to carry this performance in,” Shovlin said of Mercedes’ performance at Silverstone following the British GP.

“Red Bull are going to be good at a high-downforce circuit. Frankly, they’re good at every circuit at the moment and they’re going to be a bit bruised after the experience here.

“So I’m sure that they’re going to come back really strong.”

Hamilton’s fourth win of the season saw him reduce Verstappen’s championship advantage from 33 points to just eight, while Mercedes head to Budapest just four points adrift of Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.

“We’re about halfway through the championship, there’s very fine margins in terms of the points and for us, we’re just going to throw everything at it now to try to get through,” Shovlin added.

“If we can get ourselves ahead going into the summer break that would be fantastic. So that’s probably the target that we’ll set ourselves, but it’s a stretch target.

“But we’ve shown [at Silverstone] that anything’s possible. You’ve just got to keep going and try to get better, try to improve. They’re a difficult team to beat, but we’re a strong team and we’ll be putting everything into it to try and win.”