Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes director Andrew Shovlin celebrate ‘step forward’ at British Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin both believe Mercedes made a ‘step forward’ with their performance at Silverstone.

Hamilton has struggled for much of the season, especially in comparison to the impressively consistent George Russell alongside him with the German team, but on Friday he was second quickest in both practice sessions at the British Grand Prix.

The weekend marks an opportunity taken across the paddocks to introduce a host of new changes to cars and Mercedes appear to have benefited the most in the opening stages of the event.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Lewis Hamilton was pleased with the progress made so far.

“We have had a good day,” he said before explaining the difficulties of the track in the inconsistent weather.

“It was just wet through six and seven, and a bit on nine, but dry on the rest, and that made it difficult. You couldn’t do [intermediates] because they would get destroyed, and you couldn’t use slicks as it was too wet.”

He said Mercedes had made the most of the first session, explaining: ”We got some good running still, we got 10 laps.

“P2 was pretty good. Bouncing still, but not necessarily in a straight line, but through the corners is pretty harsh. Not physically harsh, but like on the car, the tyres and everything. We’ve still got work to do, but it feels like a small step forward: We’ve just got to keep working.”

Despite the improvement, Hamilton warned that Mercedes were not yet back at the top of the sport.

“That’s just this car – you can’t drive the tracks as it used to be, with how stiff it is, the ride characteristic, and the porpoising we do get,” he stated. “It’s not the same but you’re still having fun.

“The upgrade wasn’t anything to do with ride, just literally downforce. Difficult to feel it as it’s two massively different tracks [Silverstone compared to Montreal]. This is the best track, still hair-raising and epic to drive. We’re fighting the car a little bit, our long-run pace isn’t as good as the other guys but it’s not miles off.”

Hamilton’s comments were echoed by Shovlin.

“It seems like we have taken a step forward because we are not normally near the top on a Friday,” he concurred.

“Now, I expect there will be more to come from Ferrari and a bit more to come from Red Bull but the long-run work was quite encouraging as well and those were overlaying quite nicely.

“Normally we see a gap of about half a second, maybe even seven, eight tenths to the faster teams on a longer run and that wasn’t there.

“Probably a bit is the circuit, the circuit is suiting the car.

“There is certainly a lot to work on, there is some bouncing around and it is tricky in the high speed at the moment but hopefully the updates pushed us in the right direction.

“Turn nine we are struggling a bit, also turn 15 we are bouncing a bit around there.

“It is all things we can get stuck into when we get back into the office and find a bit more time tomorrow.

“They did diverge on setup but the long run pace looked pretty good.”