Mercedes has F1 car upgrade planned for British GP

Toto Wolff had previously suggested that Mercedes would not be upgrading its car for the rest of the season having switched focus onto the 2022 regulations, but technical chief James Allison revealed earlier this week that the team will be bringing performance updates to its W12 car.

Mercedes has fallen 40 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ championship battle following four consecutive defeats, while Lewis Hamilton finds himself 18 points adrift of Max Verstappen heading into this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix.

On Friday Wolff confirmed that a new package of parts will be introduced at the next round of the season at Silverstone in two weeks’ time, though he said that Mercedes is no longer conducting any wind tunnel work on its 2021 challenger.

“There’s not going to be big parts changes,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1 following Friday practice at the Red Bull Ring.

“There’s one more developing that’s going to come on the car in Silverstone. That has been down the sleeve for a long time.”

Mercedes has a strong record at Silverstone in the V6 hybrid era with Hamilton nothing up six of his seven victories across the past seven years, but Red Bull won the second race at the Northamptonshire track in 2020.

And Wolff warned there is no guarantee that Mercedes will be the team to beat at this year’s British Grand Prix, which is set to take place in front of a capacity crowd.

“Silverstone was was a good track for us in the past,” Wolff said.

“But then with these new regulations where they cut off big chunks of the floor, it’s very difficult to correlate and to say, ‘well, let’s go to Silverstone because that’s going to be our track’.

“Normally, our car should be functioning better there than here.”