Lewis Hamilton has said the Mercedes W15 is “better everywhere” compared to earlier this year, with incremental improvements having been made.
Hamilton will line up second behind Mercedes team-mate George Russell for the British Grand Prix on Sunday, with the Silver Arrows completing a front-row lockout at Silverstone and Lando Norris making it an all-British top three on the grid.
Lewis Hamilton: W15 is ‘better everywhere’ after feeling ‘terrible’ in Bahrain
Mercedes have made a series of upgrades to their car after a tough start to the season by their high standards, with a new front wing in Monaco the most visible change among many that have helped propel them further forward as the season has progressed.
With the team locking out the front row at Silverstone ahead of both of their drivers’ home race, Hamilton warned that Red Bull and McLaren are still extremely quick, but he had high praise for those who have worked to bring new parts to the car.
When asked what is different about the W15 compared to earlier this year, Hamilton replied after qualifying: “Everywhere. It’s just better everywhere.
“From Bahrain, for example, the car felt terrible, and the progress that we made in terms of dialling and fine-tuning the car to optimise the aero package.
“This team has never struggled to add performance, but where particularly they put that performance has always been, with this generation of car, has been a big question and where we’re getting the downforce from.
“But now they’ve done an amazing job, the engineers back at the factory. We’d definitely take it today, but these guys are still… Red Bull, particularly Max, and the McLarens are very, very, very fast.
“And in some ways, you know, you saw in the last race, they were quite a bit ahead of us. So I’m hoping that tomorrow, with the conditions, we can hold our own.”
Russell, who will start the British Grand Prix from pole position, added: “I think we’ve made some small changes, which have had a big impact.
“We knew from the start of this year, the baseline of this car is substantially better than what we’ve had in previous years. But we went from having an oversteer car last year, then to an understeer car this year, and now we’ve just dialled it back and found the happy medium.
“When you’ve got the balance in a good place, the tyre temperatures are in the right window, and the lap time just really snowballs positively.
“It hasn’t been a substantial change, but it’s made a massive difference to the lap time.”