Mercedes must be closer to Formula One Red Bull leaders at the British Grand Prix this weekend but there will still be a performance gap, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton said on Thursday.
Hamilton was 32 points behind Young Dutch Red Bull Max Verstappen after nine races and ahead of the Grand Prix Briton had won a record seven times.
Red Bull has won five final races in a row, with Verstappen pursuing a fourth consecutive victory, but Hamilton is a hopeful car upgrade will give him more opportunities to fight.
“Much works take place for the past few weeks so I hope to return to the circuit that is most suitable for us, hopefully the battle is well for a closer battle,” Hamilton said.
Mercedes has won seven of the last eight Grands British Prix and also took nine consecutive pole positions in Silverstone.
“There are many changes in the car but it’s not a big update in terms of the gap that we have seen in the race,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton said the benefits of Red Bull seemed to be two to three tenths from the second round and Mercedes did not bring a lot of performance improvements but hoped they had made steps in the right direction.
Additional challenges for this weekend are new sprint qualifications on Saturday, with a maximum of three points offered for racing 100 km which set the grid for Sundays.
“We need to win both races,” Hamilton said.
“Again, it will be difficult.
Do we have a single step that they have? It is impossible but we can be surprised tomorrow.” I tried to keep hoping and positive.
“The theme of the Finnish team Valtteri Bottas said he hoped to be competitive.” I don’t think we will be at the pole with one second like last year but I hope we can fight for the pole, “he said.