Mercedes to study McLaren’s upgrade after their impressive performance at Silverstone

James Allison, the technical director of Mercedes, said on Wednesday that they will be closely examining McLaren’s recent upgrade to understand how they have improved their pace so much in Formula One.

McLaren had a strong result at the British Grand Prix last Sunday, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finishing second and fourth respectively, while Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was third and George Russell fifth.

Norris’ podium was the first of the year for McLaren, who have a Mercedes engine but had a slow start to the season.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the race at Silverstone, his sixth consecutive win and Red Bull’s 11th in a row, but the fight behind him is tight and depends on the upgrades of each team.

“We keep an eye on all the teams as they upgrade,” Allison said in a British Grand Prix debrief, explaining that photographs were taken to monitor changes.

He said they will be more interested than usual in McLaren’s package.

“We note when something new or unusual comes along. The interesting and unusual thing about the McLaren upgrade is that its lap time effect is quite strong. It’s unusual to have a step of that size of relative competitiveness in the middle of a season and chapeau to them.

“They’ve done a good piece of work there, but that also makes it interesting for us because we have the before and after shots and we know the lap time effect was big.

“We know that whatever changed has made a meaningful difference to their lap time. It’s quite useful for us to know what that was and see whether it can play into our own thoughts of developing our own car.”

Allison said that Mercedes will continue to develop their car, even though teams will soon be focusing on 2024, and also make improvements for next year.

“For us yes, you will see the upgrades coming for a little while longer. I suspect for the others too,” he added.

“What you will get in this next sequence of races is a little bit of yo-yoing for position in a very closely packed bunch as upgrades make the difference for one team for a while, until someone else will come out of sequence with another upgrade a race or two later to even things back out.

“Where it will all settle down for the final quarter to one third of a season, we will see.”