Mercedes “need an upgrade” to fight Red Bull - Hamilton

The seven-time world champion finished a distant second in the Styrian Grand Prix to Max Verstappen, who recorded a commanding victory at the Red Bull Ring.

After Verstappen delivered Red Bull’s fourth consecutive victory this season to extend his championship lead to 18 points, Hamilton called on his team to push some development through onto its 2021 car.

“I try not to concern myself with it,” Hamilton stressed. “Naturally they are just faster than us.

“There’s not a lot I can do in that respect, I’ve just got to keep trying to do the best job I can each weekend.

“We really need to find some performance. We need an upgrade of some sort, we need to push. I don’t whether it’s just the rear wing, or it’s the upgrade in the engine, or whatever it may be.

“But we’ve got to find some performance from somewhere.”

On Saturday, Toto Wolff reiterated that Mercedes has no plans to deviate from its current development schedule for 2022 by pulling resources back for this year.

Following his latest defeat to Verstappen, Hamilton conceded he had no answer to Red Bull’s pace advantage, adding it was “impossible to keep up”.

"It was a bit of a lonely race, really,” Hamilton said.

“I was trying to keep up with those guys, but the speed they have, they’ve obviously made some big improvements over the last couple of races. It was impossible to keep up.

“I don’t know where we are losing all the time. The long runs seem to be a bit better, they seem to be able to continue pulling out those laps and obviously we lose a lot down the straights.

“It feels like we lose a lot down the straights. Nonetheless, we got good points as a team today and we’ve got to keep pushing.”