Hamilton and Russell can now trust their car, insists Mercedes

Mercedes' Chief Trackside Engineer Andrew Shovlin insists the heavily-upgraded W15 provides Lewis Hamilton and George Russell with a much better balance which means that the two British drivers can now trust their car.

Mercedes started the season with a rather uncompetitive car with the W15 having proved inconsistent and its performance fluctuated from session to session.

Following this tough start to the season, Mercedes has started to rectify the areas which needed to be improved. Although the W15 looked to be a long way off the pace, the Imola round delivered the first signs of improvement, which the Brackley-based outfit was able to build on.

Although the Montreal qualifying took place in challenging conditions, George Russell's pole position delivered a clear-cut confirmation about the improving W15, followed by the Briton's victory in Spielberg, his third career pole position at Silverstone and Lewis Hamilton's sensational triumph at the same venue.

Asked about the closing stages of the British Grand Prix, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed that Mercedes were slightly worried about Max Verstappen's pace when the Dutchman was marching towards Hamilton.

"That was quite difficult. I started to relax a little bit with about three or four to go, because you could see that Max didn't really have the pace to cut into Lewis's lead enough to actually catch him.

"But when you saw him on a different tyre, the first couple of times we put in, that tyre was working well.

"We know that they've got a very quick car, and it was a bit worrying, because after all of the decisions through all the laps of the race, to have lost it in the final moments would have been really horrible. But yeah, just great that we were able to hang on in there.

Shovlin insists that Mercedes needed the recent success to receive a confirmation about its progress after the low-key start to its season.

"There's a lot of energy in the team at the moment. We've been working hard for months, but now you can start to see the fruits of that work. And there's more to do.

"We know that Lando's particularly quick, we know Max is particularly quick. We'd like to try and get ahead of them, and we've got a bit to do, but as I said, lots of energy and lots of determination to get there.

"Obviously a really big deal, getting a front row lock-out at one of our home Grand Prix, with two British drivers as well. So that was great to see. We’ve got so many of the team there watching. We've got such great support from our fans there.

While the W15 was very sensitive to little changes of track and weather conditions, it appears to prove Hamilton and Russell with a more stable platform to work with.

"So that was a really special day. But the thing that's most encouraging is just seeing how well the car is working now across a range of corner speeds.

"Round that track, it didn't really have any obvious weaknesses, and also you could see how much the drivers are enjoying driving a car that they can trust to really commit to that qualifying lap.

So it's taken a little while to get there, but a lot of progress and nice to see the results of that with that 1-2 finish on Saturday in qualifying.

Asked how crucial the race win was for Hamilton and Mercedes, Shovlin said that "it was a massively important result."

"We said at the start of this year we were determined to go out on a high with Lewis. He's been such a huge part of the team's history. So to have not got some more wins with him would have been upsetting, but just brilliant to see him up there."