Mercedes set for ‘fairly substantial’ upgrade at COTA

Mercedes describes its upgrade for the upcoming U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas as “a fairly substantial set of new clothes” to launch its development efforts for the final six races of the Formula 1 season.

F1 is currently in the middle of four weeks between race weekends, following the Singapore Grand Prix where Mercedes struggled for race pace and finished fourth and sixth with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton respectively. Six races in eight weeks will then close out the season, meaning many teams are targeting COTA for a major upgrade package for that run, including Mercedes.

“We'll be trying to figure out how to mitigate what ailed us [in Singapore], how to figure out how to make the tires run better on these sort of overheating circuits and we'll be also doing quite a lot of work to bring our last upgrade of the season together,” technical director James Allison said.

“We've got a fairly substantial set of new clothes for the car coming for Austin that we hope will give us a decent weekend there. So we've got to deliver all that and get ourselves ready for these last few races of the year.”

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Allison is hopeful the developments will allow Mercedes to provide its drivers with a more competitive car, after Hamilton’s 350th grand prix start in Singapore ended in disappointing fashion as he faded from third on the grid in a challenging race.

“Lewis has had a career that I think won't ever be matched by any other driver and for him to have done it all with one engine supplier, with Mercedes engines, is I think particularly remarkable," Allison said.

“We are coming towards the end of our journey with him and almost every weekend is a milestone never to be repeated with Lewis. It's just a shame that it happened on a weekend where the car was not more bright and my hope is that we won't have to go too far beyond the 350th -- maybe we can celebrate the 351st in greater style.”