Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Red Bull Ring, 2021

Mercedes bringing upgrade to W12 for next race

2021 Austrian Grand Prix

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Mercedes will bring an upgrade to its W12 for the next round of the championship at Silverstone, team principal Toto Wolff has confirmed.

The world champions previously indicated they would not bring any further updates for their current car as they were prioritising development work on their new chassis for the 2022 F1 season.

However Wolff confirmed today they have a new package of parts coming for the British Grand Prix in two weeks’ time.

“There’s one more [development] that’s going to come on the car in Silverstone,” he told Sky, “but that has been down the sleeve for a long time.”

Wolff said the team’s wind tunnel is no longer being used to develop their current car. “There’s not going to be big parts changes,” he added.

The team suffered its fourth consecutive defeat to Red Bull last weekend in Austria. Wolff is unsure whether they will be as competitive at Silverstone as in past seasons, due to the changes made to cars this year.

“Silverstone was was a good track for us in the past,” he admitted. “But then with these new regulations where they cut off big chunks of the floor, it’s very difficult to correlate and to say, ‘well, let’s go to Silverstone because that’s going to be our track’.

“Normally, our car should be functioning better there than here.”

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas headed the second practice session at the Red Bull Ring today ahead of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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6 comments on “Mercedes bringing upgrade to W12 for next race”

  1. Pedro Andrade
    2nd July 2021, 17:22

    But, but… They told us they were finished! How come?

    1. Why do people hang on Mercedes every word, like they are some saintly being that is beyond telling fibs? I regularly tell my employees one thing and do something else. I would certainly do the same, and more, to any rival company and media! Nothing to see here but it seems Merc MUST tell the truth at every turn! Why?

    2. But, but… all the teams told us the same last year at various times, but new stuff arrived that was in the pipeline and cheap little add-ons appeared up to the last race. But in those days most understood how it all worked and what people actually meant. For example most people understand that ones teams rear wing upgrades; say Merc, are all versions of the same wing; whilst another team; say RB, would have wing upgrades that are distinctly different and carry more ‘worth’.

    3. Wording, just like when they said ferrari were favourites.

  2. Does it have a qualifying mode?

  3. good question!

Comments are closed.