Mercedes now have clear route, not ‘fighting to survive’

Mercedes have illustrated their recent progress by saying they are no longer merely “fighting to survive” with the W13.

A disappointing first half of the season for the eight-time consecutive Constructors’ champions has featured several low points, in particular Lewis Hamilton being unable to even reach Q2 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

But as they have continued to learn about their all-new car, which has been among the worst examples of the porpoising effect so prevalent in the new ground-effect challengers, things have started to pick up for Mercedes.

Rather than collecting podium finishes as a result of mishaps for rival teams, they are now starting to gain them entirely on merit – and Hamilton looked fastest of all for parts of the British Grand Prix before eventually finishing third, helped by an update to the car.

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Picking up that extra point Fastest lap on Sunday went to @LewisHamilton – the 60th of his career pic.twitter.com/xH3stSVUKA

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) July 4, 2022

“In the first few races, we were literally just sort of fighting to survive,” said Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, quoted by Motorsport.com.

“And the drivers were fighting to survive with a car that was incredibly difficult to work with.

“But we did a decent job of scoring points, actually, and picking up on opportunities when others were unreliable.”

The first time there looked to be tangible improvement from Mercedes was at the Spanish Grand Prix, to which they took an upgrade with George Russell and