F1 News
Why Mercedes feel 'nervous' ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix
Mercedes have had a strong triple header, bringing home victories from Austria and Silverstone. As they look ahead to the final two races before the summer break, they will continue to introduce upgrades. Nevertheless, Mercedes engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, has admitted the team does feel slightly nervous ahead of the visit to Hungary.
Mercedes have turned their performance around, with both drivers securing a win this season. This weekend, they will head to Hungary, a track where Lewis Hamilton has won eight times. Whilst some would expect the team to feel confident, Shovlin has revealed on the F1 Nation podcast that this is not the case: "Well, we certainly don't think we won the last one, let's go and win the next one," he said. "It almost makes you a bit more nervous that maintaining that performance we had in Silverstone is going to be very difficult."
Could Mercedes win in Hungary?
Mercedes have made a vast improvement since the start of the season, as they now sit fourth, just 74 points behind McLaren in the Constructors. The team, which had not won a race since 2022, have seen two wins this season, with both Russell and Hamilton featuring on the top of the podium. Hamilton may also be looking to break his record again. At Silverstone, he broke the record for the most wins at a single circuit, after being triumphant for the ninth time. With eight wins already in Hungary, he could do this again.
Despite this, Shovlin remains cautious. They are not quite on the same level yet as McLaren, who have also been making improvements, nor rivals Red Bull. "If you look at what is the big difference for Hungary, it's probably this is the test of whether or not we have got on top of our long run performance in hot conditions. Because in Barcelona and in Austria, we couldn't match Lando [Norris] or Max [Verstappen] on the long run. Both those two cars were well ahead of us," he explained.
"Now, we hopefully will have made a bit of progress. If you look at the size of the gap at those two previous races, I'd be surprised if we can pull it in that significantly. But then again, we surprised ourselves with the first stint in Silverstone. We can simulate some of those problems from Silverstone and Barcelona. We know the type of issues that will throw our way and we'll just put our effort into the preparation side and make sure that we can start with the best setup that we can and how do we develop it from there," Shovlin concluded.