Mercedes intends to introduce key upgrades at Austin

On the back of a series of tough races, Mercedes are intent on introducing upgrades to its car at the forthcoming race at Austin, suggesting that further upgrades are planned for the remainder of the season.

Mercedes enjoyed an impressive run of form in the four races that took place in July, taking the victory in three of them. However, after the sport returned to action at the Dutch Grand Prix, the Brackley-based outfit started to struggle for pace, and has been unable to keep up with the pace of McLaren and Ferrari.

Their struggles continued at the Singapore Grand Prix, with the Anglo-German outfit starting the weekend off the pace before displaying a strong performance in qualifying. However, the W15 did not have the race pace, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell losing places compared to their starting positions.

Reflecting on the race at the Marina Bay Circuit, Mercedes' technical director James Allison suggested that certain setup choices might have led to the change in form.

The weekend in Singapore started with significant balance issues for Mercedes, but a turnaround occurred on Saturday. However, the problems resurfaced during the race on Sunday, as James Allison, Mercedes' technical director, explained:

"The real anomaly was Saturday. We managed to move from a difficult Friday to a noteworthy grid position. Credit goes to the team for overturning a complicated Friday."

"Probably the changes we made unintentionally improved the car for the dry lap in qualifying but hurt us on the long run."

Asked why Mercedes elected to bolt on soft tyres on Lewis Hamilton's car for the start of the race, Allison said that they wanted to gain places with the grip advantage.

"In hindsight, we should have fitted the medium tires. We hoped to gain a few positions at the start with the softs, but the pace increased earlier than expected, and degradation forced an early stop, ruining the race," Allison said.

Although Mercedes is not in contention for the titles this season, Mercedes' trackside engineer director Andrew Shovlin has revealed that the team will introduce a host of upgrades at the United States Grand Prix.

"We always try to bring performance to each race. Right now, our main goal is to bring a significant package to Austin. Then we will approach the last six races of the year with other smaller upgrades."