Mercedes is gearing up for the upcoming U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas with what they describe as a significant upgrade to kick off their development efforts for the final six races of the Formula 1 season.
Following the Singapore Grand Prix where Mercedes faced challenges with race pace and finished fourth and sixth with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, the F1 calendar currently has a four-week break between race weekends. With six races in eight weeks to close out the season, many teams, including Mercedes, are targeting COTA for a major upgrade package.
Technical director James Allison explained, “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.”
He added, “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 optimistic that the developments will enable Mercedes to provide its drivers with a more competitive car after Hamilton’s challenging race in Singapore, where he faded from third on the grid.
Reflecting on Hamilton’s 350th grand prix start, 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.”
