Mercedes technical director James Allison is hopeful the new front wing seen on the W14 at Silverstone will prove beneficial in Hungary next weekend given its design characteristics that should play to the slow-speed nature of the circuit.
Mercedes rolled out the upgraded part for the British Grand Prix that has been developed to improve airflow to the bodywork and floor that were introduced from the race in Monaco, and proved particularly beneficial in the races in Spain and Canada.
The front wing, however, did not deliver the performance step that Mercedes fans had hoped for, although Allison has revealed its true value should be seen at the tight, twisty Hungaroring.
Asked whether the specification had performed as expected or whether there was more to come, Allison said: “It’s a bit too early to tell.
“The new front wing is, of course, designed to make us go faster. That’s why we do all our things.
“The specific characteristic 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 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.
“The early signs are promising, the new front wing seemed to do what we expected, and hopefully it will bring us more at tracks that have a wider range of slow corners.”
At Silverstone, Mercedes was again forced to rely on the work of its overnight development team to aid its cause after George Russell, in particular, said the car was “nowhere” following practice on Friday.
Reserve driver Mick Schumacher tweeted a picture of the time he left the factory at Brackley in the early hours of Saturday, showing as 2.15am as he again put in the hours in a bid to elevate Hamilton and Russell up the grid for qualifying.
Schumacher’s efforts, and those of the rest of the team proved invaluable as Hamilton and Russell salvaged third and fifth respectively from the race after qualifying seventh and sixth.
Allison claims the overnight work on Friday has now become “more and more of an important factor in the rhythm” of the race weekend, with what unfolded for the British GP “particularly important”.
Despite seeing “good, consistent race pace” from the car in practice, Allison conceded the one-lap performance was “woeful”, and that the car was “just slow”.
“Our challenge overnight was how to find pace in a car for qualifying, without mucking about with the fundamental set-up of the car,” said Allison. “That’s what they set out to do on Friday night in our simulator.
“The engineers and Mick worked late into the night until 2am trying to figure out how to get the best preparation of the car to be in good shape for a qualifying lap, for that single push lap, without changing the fundamental set-up.
“So only working on the things that you can change – the tyre pressures, the flap angles, and so on, things that you are allowed to change between qualifying and race and, therefore, things that we can do without upsetting the fundamental set-up of the car.
“It was brilliant overnight work from that team, the result being that our single-lap qualifying pace lifted us right back up to being in the mix for a decent grid slot on Saturday, which is what set up our ability to have a good race on Sunday.”
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