Wolff: Mercedes have made incremental gains in the last races

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said that his outfit has made "incremental gains" over the past races, but the Austrian expects Red Bull to come back on the more traditional tracks.

Having introduced a comprehensive set of upgrades in recent races, Mercedes displayed a strong showing in Montreal two weeks ago.

George Russell demonstrated the improved pace of the W15 by grabbing the team's first pole position of 2024. The Briton then went on to secure his first podium finish of Mercedes while his team-mate Lewis Hamilton finished just a spot behind.

Explaining his team's recent form, Wolff said: "We have continued to make incremental gains across the past few races. It was encouraging therefore to take another positive step forward in Canada.

"To see that translate into our strongest team result of the season so far is a reward for everyone's hard work."

Despite the improvement, Wolff is not getting carried away though, as he is well aware that the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was a unique weekend due to the weather conditions and the freshly resurfaced track.

"The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a unique track, however. It has a narrow range of corner speeds and, with a newly re-laid surface, was something of an outlier compared to more traditional venues."

"We know our competitors will perform more strongly at upcoming races so we will need to continue to work hard to consistently get ourselves in the fight for podiums, and eventually race wins."

Wolff said that the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will test Mercedes' recent upgrades, and will therefore deliver a real assessment whether the team has managed to make its car more balanced in all types of corners.

"Barcelona will provide a good test of our progress. It has a mix of fast, medium, and low speed corners, a long straight and plenty of elevation change," Toto says.

"Tracks that contain this wide speed range have been a weakness of ours so far this year. This weekend will therefore provide another opportunity to evaluate our progress through our recent updates, and we hope to build on the positive momentum from Montreal," Wolff concluded.