Mercedes looking to 'bully' car to the front with development

Mercedes technical director James Allison says the team has upgrades in the pipeline that will have it “bullying our car to the front” to try and repeat its form from the Canadian Grand Prix.

George Russell took pole position in Montreal and was in the fight for victory throughout before eventually finishing third to secure Mercedes’ first podium of the season. Lewis Hamilton was fourth on a weekend where Mercedes often showed field-leading pace, and Allison said recent upgrades have improved the car but he isn’t expecting a repeat of that level of competitiveness at every track yet.

“The changes we have made are making this car a better car,” Allison said. “And that will be true at every circuit we go to. The characteristics of Montreal make it look a little quicker than we have a natural right to command at the coming races.

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“In Barcelona, I think it more likely that we will be competitive, but not right at the front because the next tracks are a little bit of a sterner test of a car – hot asphalt, wider cornering speeds. However, I also know what we have got coming. I also know what we are planning to further improve the car.

“Our challenge is just to keep those upgrades arriving at a pace that the others cannot keep up with. In doing that, just bullying our car to the front by virtue of the effort made by everybody here over the coming weeks and months to get the car so that it can have its Montreal weekend or better at any track that we face in the future.”

A lot of focus has been on the front wing Mercedes introduced in Monaco, and after both drivers received it in Montreal, Allison says it delivered the performance the team had been hoping for.

“We had got an idea of how it would behave, because we had run it the previous race in Monaco with just George on that occasion. We had two of them in Montreal, and we expected it to perform well. We expected it to deliver a bit more in Canada than it did in Monaco, because the Canada circuit, although unusual, is more of a normal circuit than Monaco was.

“It delivered more performance, it made the car feel easy to drive, well-balanced, and made the car the driver's friend rather than the thing they had been fighting, which has been what has been problematic in the opening part of the season for us.”