07 July 2023 , 14:49
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Mercedes ' front wing upgrade for the British Grand Prix was brought in to help Lewis Hamilton's driving style, one Silver Arrows chief has admitted.
More car performance woes have meant Mercedes have largely underwhelmed again so far this year. Hamilton in particular struggled to get to grips with the car in the early rounds of the season.
In recent outings, though, he has been able to get much more out of his machine. In contrast, team-mate George Russell is now having issues.
He out-qualified Hamilton at four of the first five race weekends this year. But Russell failed to reach Q3 at two of his last three races and admitted he is having issues after the Austria event.
Team boss Toto Wolff had promised a "larger" upgrade for this weekend's race at Silverstone. In reality, the only changes made have been to the front wing of that W14.
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And part of that motivation for that change, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said, was to make Hamilton more comfortable in his car.
"When we made changes to the car in Monaco, it got a bit pointy and the front end is quite direct," he explained. "And it's a fine line between that being helpful to your driving style and it being a bit of a hindrance.
Mercedes hope Hamilton will benefit from the new wing (HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"Now, with races like the Sprint race, you've got no time to play with setup so there are some items we brought here to try to adapt the car a bit more towards Lewis' style, but he's very pragmatic. He's taking a long-term view on this and he's very focused on what is it I need to look at to test to try and find the improvements.
"We'll chip away at that here but he's pretty calm in terms of helping us develop the car the way that we need to, and in the background working on his own understanding of how to adapt the setup to his style."
Speaking after the Austria race about his and his team-mate's struggles, Russell said: "Lewis is still struggling a lot with the car. I think it's just more that I've taken a bit of a step backwards. [I've] got some ideas why that is but it's fine details. It's been a tricky few races for me personally, not feeling super happy with the car."