LONDON :Former champions Mercedes hope to be challenging for wins again when they return from Formula One’s August break after binning a rear suspension upgrade that made the car slower.
The upgrade was introduced at Imola in May after George Russell had finished in the top three in four of the first six races.
The Briton finished only seventh in that Italian race and Mercedes dropped the upgrade for the next two rounds before bringing it back for Canada, a race Russell won.
That proved misleading, and Russell struggled in the following four races until Mercedes reverted to the old package for Hungary last weekend and he finished third.
Rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli was also back in the points at the Hungaroring, finishing 10th after three races without scoring.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the upgrade would “be ending up in a bin somewhere.
“We were misled a bit by the Montreal win… we came to the conclusion it needed to come off, it went off and the car’s back to solid form,” said the Austrian.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said in a Hungarian GP debrief on Wednesday that the car was now easier to work with and the drivers more confident in attacking the corners.
“If we make a new suspension, we’re doing it to make the car go quicker… and clearly there’s something that wasn’t right,” he added.
“And it’s not something that was dead obvious. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the issue in the first place.”
Shovlin said the learning would help Russell in his battle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for third place overall behind the McLaren drivers, and Mercedes chasing second in the constructors’.
“Budapest showed that we’ve got a good car when we land it in the right place,” said Shovlin. “And then hopefully there’ll be an opportunity to build on our tally of race wins.
“We had a great time in Montreal. There’s other circuits that are a bit more like that coming up over the remaining 10 races and hopefully we’ll have a few more highlights.”
