Mercedes sees chances: "At our best we can beat Red Bull and become champions"

Mercedes is under a lot of pressure. The team has suffered three consecutive defeats to Red Bull Racing, so they have work to do to catch up. However, the German team is confident they can beat Red Bull if they perform at their best.

Andrew Shovlin, chief engineer at Mercedes, is sure his team has everything it needs to win the title. "We see it like this: if we are at our best we can beat Red Bull," he says in conversation with Motorsport.com. "In France we saw that opportunities missed by us made the difference."

Mercedes must be perfect to beat Red Bull

He continued: "We know it's going to be difficult. We think they are the favourites. They obviously have a good package, but if we perform at our best we can beat them and win the championship."

According to Shovlin, Mercedes had a potentially winning car in France, but the team lost out strategically. "It's irritating because I think we could have won the race. I think we could have had two cars on the podium. We're in a championship where we can't let opportunities like this slip away," said Shovlin.