Mercedes’ Technical Director James Allison thinks that the reigning constructor’s champions are in a slight downward trend following upgrades brought at the start of the European leg.
As a reminder, the Austrian team brought a new floor and a new front wing at the Imola, and albeit a victory at Emilia Romagna GP, Red Bull’s form is in doubt in comparison to before Miami and Imola.
“I guess as soon as there’s a decent range of cornering speeds, they’ll be useful again, but it does look as if their upgrade was a downgrade”. – Allison reported at the start of the Canadian GP weekend.
Albeit a most recent victory at Imola, Red Bull seemed to have struggles with curb riding which almost gave a ‘back-to-back’ victory to Lando Norris.
“That [an upgrade] makes life hard, because the moment you stop trusting your tools, you have to backtrack, and you lose loads of time. Time is your biggest friend, losing it is your worst enemy.”
Meanwhile, the Brackley-based team brought an update on the front wing and suspension area that should bolster W13 speeding through a variety of high and low acceleration corners.
Mercedes’ Technical Director predicts that the team will improve its performance across upcoming races. This pattern is practically true since the new regulations were introduced.
Allison is hopeful about Mercedes’ overturn of a fairly modest season.
“Hopefully, we will be somewhat better in a couple of races from now.”
“We’ve gone from being really embarrassingly crap, not good enough, at the beginning of the year, to be near the fight. A little bit more will get us right in the melee.”
In a mixed-conditions FP1 session for the Canadian GP, the Mercedes duo ended up in 4th and 13th place respectively.
Allison’s topic of this question, Red Bull ended up in 5th and 8th.
This session was from the indication of the things to be for both Mercedes and Red Bull as drivers had only 5 minutes to perform a lap time on set of a dry tires in the mixed conditions.