Mercedes now more competitive in hot F1 races 

The Mercedes Formula 1 team is confident it has solved its weakness in high temperatures and believes it will be more competitive in hot races in the future. 

Mercedes has often struggled with tyre life conservation - particularly with its rear tyres - compared to its nearest rivals in races featuring higher temperatures. 

But Lewis Hamilton’s victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix, which took place in 33C heat and saw track temperatures rise as high as 57C, has left the German manufacturer feeling it has made progress in that department.  

Team boss Toto Wolff believes Hamilton’s ability to pull off a one-stop strategy and extend his first stint on Ultrasoft tyres was key to his victory. 

“Free air plays a big role but it’s a little bit of a mystery that sometimes you perform on a tyre and not on the other one. I think it was the other way around with Ferrari,” Wolff explained. 

"More data to collect, more to understand, but the prevailing, overarching feeling for us is that we won the race in Budapest with 60-degree track temperature. 

“That was something we would have not thought could be achievable for us. That gives me a good feeling that we have understood more and we can be more competitive in the hot races in the future.”

Hamilton, who had struggled throughout practice in Hungary until he took advantage of wet conditions in qualifying to claim pole position, insisted his performance does not mean Mercedes has found an answer to its overheating issues that will prevent the problem from re-emerging in future. 

“If you look at some of the comments from the last race, it was ‘oh Mercedes all of a sudden knows, this race they’ve made the tyres last’, which is not the case,” Hamilton said. 

Mercedes technical director James Allison said a combination of having a car that looked after its rear tyres well, as well as a strong display of tyre management from Hamilton, were the pivotal factors behind the team’s win in Hungary.