Mercedes will ‘know for sure’ where upgrades stand after Hungarian Grand Prix following strong Silverstone performance

Mercedes technical director James Allison has said that the team will only “know for sure” that their upgrades have worked after the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix.

The two Silver Arrows not only finished ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull, but they also beat both Ferraris and both Aston Martins.

That has led to speculation that Mercedes might be getting back to a competitive point and could start challenging regularly for podiums, and possibly even wins.

However, speaking ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Allison poured cold water on the celebrations, saying that their performance at the Hungaroring this coming weekend will be far more instructive.

“It’s a bit too early to tell,” he said. “The new front-wing is, of course, designed to make us go faster. That’s why we do all our things.

“The specific characteristics of this new front-wing that we are excited about, is that it should improve the balance and performance of the car through the slower range of the corners.

“Now, Silverstone is famous for lots of things, but lots and lots of slow corners is not one of them. What we took as a comfort from Silverstone is that in the slower parts of the track, we were looking pretty decently competitive.

“That’s a tick in the box for this new front-wing. But I guess it will only be when we get to Hungary, which is a track made up almost entirely of slower stuff, that we’ll get to know for sure.

“Early sings are promising, the new front-wing seemed to do what we expected, and hopefully it will bring us more at tracks which have a wider range of slow corners.”

One of the potential issues for Mercedes is that whilst they seemingly overtook Ferrari and Aston Martin, they themselves appeared to be leapfrogged by McLaren.

Allison admitted he too was impressed by what Andrea Stella and his team had done and they would be analysing the upgrades.

“We keep an eye on all the teams as they upgrade,” Aliison said.

“We take lots of photos and we try and figure out what changes from race to race. We note when something new or unusual comes along.

“The interesting and unusual thing about the McLaren upgrade is that its lap time effect is quite strong. It’s unusual to have a step of that size of relative competitiveness in the middle of a season and chapeau to them.”