Mercedes: "Problems with the tyres are still not solved after Barcelona"

At Silverstone Mercedes suffered enormously from the tyres. Those problems were expected to return at Barcelona, but suddenly the German team was no longer bothered by the blisters and the high wear and tear of the tyres. James Vowles explains why the team suddenly got so much better with the tyres.

"We learned a lot from the Grands Prix at Silverstone. We only had a few days to understand everything and it's clear that you're not going to change the whole car in those few days", explains Vowles in a debrief on the Mercedes Youtube channel. "Barcelona is different from Silverstone, because you drive with more downforce, more than that you don't actually change the car".

Problems not solved

But how did Mercedes know how to handle the tyres? "We've made some adjustments to the set-up of the car and all the hard work we've done in the few days we've done the race on Sunday has made a big difference. We took care of the tyres, but so did Max Verstappen, but if we had to go faster we could do the same with the tyres".

So Mercedes was clearly better at handling the tyres than Red Bull Racing. "Lewis Hamilton always managed to win some time, which was very important in the end". However, the problems with the tyres have not yet been solved at Mercedes, expected Vowles. "It is unlikely that the problems have been solved, the situation at Silverstone was different from Barcelona. We have just managed to perform well in the warm conditions this weekend", said Vowles.