F1 | Mercedes, Wolff: “Lewis was very strong, victory was within our reach”

For Mercedes, the Silverstone race was all in all positive. Lewis Hamilton achieved his third podium of the season, the second in a row after an absolutely competitive weekend, in which he showed a very strong pace especially during the race, with the Ferraris having quite a few difficulties keeping him behind when they were in the lead and before the final blow. Russell was involved in Zhou's initial crash and was immediately forced to retire.

“In Barcelona we started to see the light at the end of the tunnel – admits Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal. After that we were in difficulty on the city tracks, so I don't want to go back to it, I prefer to remain cautious. Our persistent driving problem remained throughout the Silverstone weekend, we need to improve, but our pace was excellent, which is encouraging and means the updates are working. In Austria there are a couple of corners that have not been digested by our cars in the past, and for us it is a constant learning process."

“This year it will be difficult to win, but we need to improve the car's performance. George's race was disappointing, he practically never started, his pace would have been excellent, but this is the regulation and we can't do anything about it. Lewis was very strong, we had the victory in front of us before the Safety Car, we were chasing the Ferraris, but once we put on the soft tires we weren't able to really challenge it."