Mercedes reassured: 'Car is better despite decision to stop development'

Unlike Red Bull Racing, Mercedes decided some time ago to stop the development of this year's car. The team wants to focus on 2022 when the new regulations come into force. Mercedes is relieved that the risk they took didn't lead to worse results in the final stage of the season.

F1 teams must try to find the right balance between the work on this season's car and the developments needed for the new season. Mercedes did not want to risk falling behind with the 2022 car but acknowledged that it could be a danger to fall behind this year, especially since Red Bull is still continuing with upgrades.

Before the summer break, Red Bull set the pace, but now it looks like Mercedes have turned things around. Valtteri Bottas won the Turkish Grand Prix in dominant fashion and Lewis Hamilton was the fastest man in Russia.

Engineer Andrew Shovlin tells the following on Motorsport.com: "We've had a run of good form in the dry, and we've shown good pace in the wet, and it looks like a car that can win championships. If you go back to the early part of the year with the decisions that were taken on development, trying to balance the two years, one of our worries was at this end of the year, are we still going to be able to stick the car on pole, to get a front-row lockout, and to control a race?"

"It's really reassuring that we're getting into the last six and we've shown we've got a package that can out-qualify them [Red Bull] on a Saturday and outrace them on a Sunday", ends Shovlin. Despite the positive results, Mercedes knows that it is not yet a guarantee for the expectations in the last six races.