Mercedes pursue improvements in Hockenheim

Despite enjoying an enviable advantage both in terms of performance and on the points table Mercedes are desperate to hunt for further improvements. The Brackley-based team is about to launch a series of novelties at their home race.

Mercedes were plagued with different reliability issues in the last GPs: both cars’ power unit suffered from extensive overheating in Canada, Lewis Hamilton’s brakes topped the maximum temperatures in Austria and Nico Rosberg was knocked out by gear glitches at Silverstone. Mercedes are about to get rid of technical issues and further extend their already demoralizing performance advantage.

“Since the last race we have been working with huge efforts to solve the problem.” – said Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff. “The performance of the car is clear to see. Although it is very important to reach perfect reliability if we want to maintain our advantage until the end of the season.”

Mercedes trialled a set of new components during the post-Silverstone test. A new tiny monkey seat, curved turning vanes around the rear brakes and some other aerodynamical parts were tried out. “We will introduce new components which we tried out during the tests at Silverstone. We expect better performance and better reliability.” – conceded technical chief Paddy Lowe.

“Our main focus was placed on finding the problem which occurred on Nico’s car and make sure it won’t affect us again. As always we put lots of effort into troubleshooting and we found a solution for Hockenheim.”

The gearbox in Rosberg’s car that caused a DNF for the German at Silverstone will not be used again, allowing the team to make improvements on the new specification. Lewis Hamilton's example should last until the Italian GP in order to complete the 6-race target.