Their first upgrade of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix comfortably created their best weekend and talk about closing the gap on Ferrari and Red Bullonly for two nasty weekends that follow.
The last upgrade for Silverstone last weekend resulted in a podium place for Hamilton in a race where he really could have won if the safety car hadn’t been there.
In the defense of Mercedes, they were only cautiously optimistic about the future after Barcelona. After the British Grand Prix, talk from their garage was generally much more optimistic, to the extent that Grand Prix wins are finally discussed as a reality†
At this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, such a result seems unlikely at a track expected to be dominated by the team that bears his name: the Red Bull Ring.
Best images of the F1 Austrian Grand Prix
But Hamilton said: “It encourages us that we are on the right track. With a little more hard work, hopefully we can get closer to a chance of winning. I really believe we can win this year. There is real potential in the car. At Silverstone there was definitely potential to win the race.
“Earlier this year I was absolutely not sure that we would ever get a win in this car, but that’s not the way we like to think. It felt like there was a long way to catch up with everyone, knowing the progress everyone is making.
“It’s hugely encouraging. For a long time we would make changes and not see it [on the track]† It was a good step in Barcelona, but after that we had some difficult races.”
Despite Mercedes’ dominance in recent years, Austria is a race Hamilton has only won once, in 2016, and it has usually not been a track suitable for the team. That said, this year’s car is a very different prospect. And Hamilton suggested that a podium finish might be asking too much.
“With our current performance, we are not at the same level as the teams before us,” he said. “We need everything to align. The weather is up and down. I hope we will be pleasantly surprised, but I could be wrong. I remain hopeful.”
Lewis Hamilton at Red Bull Ring on Thursday
† APVerstappen is aiming for a record fourth win at the Red Bull Ring, and is the overwhelming favorite to do that and come back from a difficult race in the UK where he could only finish seventh when Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz took his first win .
But the Dutchman was given a boost by the fact that Charles Leclerc had his own problems, a pit stop strategy error by his Ferrari team during the safety car cost him a chance at victory.
There was arguing within the team in the aftermath and in particular there was TV footage of team boss Mattia Binotto wagging his finger at Leclerc in heated discussions immediately afterwards. Binotto traveled to Leclerc’s home in Monaco this week to make sure there were no ills and to try and get the team’s championship ambitions back on track after a mixed weekend at Silverstone.
Leclerc said: “[Binotto] was pretty mad at me after Silverstone at first for seeing me extremely down, which he clearly understood, but he just wanted to make sure I was okay.
“And I realized that, okay, I had done a great job given the situation I was in after the safety car.”
We know where we made mistakes and I hope we can grow from there.
Leclerc is 43 points behind Verstappen in the drivers’ standings after 10 races with two wins over six of his title rivals. And in the Constructors’ Championship, Red Bull has 328 points over Ferrari’s 265.
As a result, they cannot afford any further slips in the subsequent races, which start this weekend. But Leclerc said he was sure the team would improve.
“There are things we could have done better,” he said. “But we know where we made the mistakes and I hope we can grow from that. As a team we have already changed a few things, just in the way of communicating during the race to be ready at that particular moment.
“Once a safety car is out, you have to make a decision there and if you’re not ready for that, it’s difficult. But we are very united. There is no division of any kind in the team.”