© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff credits Mercedes’ car upgrades and Lewis Hamilton’s simulator work with helping the team get closer to Red Bull in terms of performance.
At the British Grand Prix Mercedes managed to reduce Red Bull’s championship lead from 44 points to just four points, while Max Verstappen’s lead over Lewis Hamilton got reduced from 32 points to just 8.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff gives part of the credit to Lewis Hamilton’s dedication to help the team in any possible way.
More specifically, although Lewis said earlier this year that he didn’t like doing simulator work, ahead of the British Grand Prix he admitted he spent a lot of time at Brackley doing just that.
“Yes, the simulator wasn’t his most favourite tool in the past,” Toto Wolff explained.
“But I think we’ve developed it to a level that is quite good and made it best in class, and he’s started to see the benefits of it.
“This fight is so tough that you need to just grab every single marginal gain, and that’s why we’ve progressed together to better understand the car also with the tool of the simulator.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Wolff added that the upgrades Mercedes brought to Silverstone, although not “big”, also helped reduce the gap to Red Bull.
“The upgrades weren’t big, but if you keep adding them up it can make a difference. I think we’re still a little bit down on performance, no doubt about that. I think in race pace it would have been pretty similar.
“[But] we halved the deficit [to Red Bull] in terms of performance, and you just need to mobilise everything in your arsenal of weapons and that’s what [Lewis] is doing as a driver and we as a team.
“There are going to be trickier ones, there’s going to be better ones, but scoring these big points [at Silverstone] is important,” concluded the Austrian.
