Ex-Mercedes boss sees through their 'complaints': 'They won't put it that way'

After the race in Austria, Wolff wondered how it was possible that Ferrari kept introducing upgrade after upgrade. The team had indicated that they would also bring the necessary upgrades to Silverstone. The Scuderia aims to improve local load and cooling, having introduced increased cooling inlet and outlet sections, an updated lower deflector, and a re-optimized rearward winglet cluster for Lewis Hamilton's home Grand Prix.

"The only ones who are not slowing down is Ferrari. Between McLaren, Red Bull and ourselves, you can see we had one big one that we introduced in Montreal. We have small parts that come in between. I think the same for Red Bull and McLaren. It's just Ferrari seems to be limitless in that way," Wolff expressed his concerns. Ferrari operates, like every other team, under the same cost cap. Implementing unlimited upgrades should therefore not be possible according to him.

Even so, George Russell repeated Wolff's words at Silverstone. "We have been surprised at how many upgrades some teams are bringing, but maybe they'll pay the price towards the end of the season. And, you know, we know when we're planning our upgrades, it's not this side of the break. And then we can just review during the summer break if you pull the trigger slightly early on those upgrades or not. So it's just a balancing act, but as Toto said, we have been a bit surprised with how many that some other teams have brought," the Briton told, among others, GPblog on Thursday.

GPblog asked the former Mercedes man and current Williams team boss James Vowles about his former team being surprised by Ferrari's output. He immediately chuckled a bit: "What I can't also tell is how much is gamemanship up and down the sports in the pit lane at the same time, too. I think the right thing to do is not to sit there and go, ‘they've done a better job,’ but rather ‘I'm surprised on how they're doing it.’ So that would be my comment on that one," Vowles explains.

"Mercedes are doing very well on their car and how quick it is and how much performance they're bringing to it," he says. Vowles also points to Mercedes’ structure, which has long been clear and efficient, and compares it to Williams. "Even if I had everything on time and working, our efficiency level is not at the level of a Formula 1 team that's an established way of working for 10 years. That's just a fact behind it.

During the press conference, this website asked Hamilton himself what he thought of those remarks from his former teammate and team principal, but he kept his answer brief. "I mean, that’s a question for Fred. I don’t mingle with the money element of things," said the seven-time world champion. He again emphasized that he sees Ferrari as ‘the innovator’ of the paddock, and that he’s not surprised other teams want to copy Ferrari.

Teammate Charles Leclerc wasn’t asked about Mercedes’ concerns during his media session, but he did talk about the changes they’ve made to the car. He describes them more as ‘little things’ and doesn’t see them as major upgrades.

The Monegasque driver said: "In Barcelona, [the pace] was a lot better, and the feeling in Barcelona, and also the pace, I think, was very strong. But in Austria, it's true that on Sunday I struggled more, so I put a lot of effort into it and I understood a few things. Whether this is enough, it's never enough, and I'll keep working as hard as I can to try and get more performance."