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Mercedes have ruled themselves out of developing a light-weight chassis amidst rumours of multiple teams pursuing this strategy, ahead of the Belgian GP this weekend.
As revealed by Auto Motor und Sport, Mercedes have ruled themselves out of the race of teams trying to shed weight by developing light-weight chassis. Implying cost as a factor, the team said:
“That would be far too expensive. Not just because of the crash tests. You have to build three new chassis, and they cost you two million extra."
AMuS has also reported that Mercedes are 8 kg overweight, Red Bull 7 kg, Haas and McLaren 3 kgs, while Ferrari and AlphaTauri's figures are not known.
The report said that Red Bull are taking the financial hit of not just building a lighter monocoque but also putting it through the FIA crash tests required before it's deemed legal. In addition to Red Bull, according to AMus, there is at least one more team that's pursuing the same philosophy.
Mercedes, on their part, have shown improvements recently, making the podium in the last six races. The streak started in Baku with George Russell. Since then, at least one of their drivers have been on the podium in all six races.
After the race in Hungary, both Mercedes drivers were ecstatic, with Lewis Hamilton, who finished second, saying:
"I was struggling at the beginning of the race and wasn't sure whether I'd be able to catch up, so I'm happy I was able to recover from P7. I had a good start, which was crucial, and, bit by bit, I felt more comfortable with the balance of the car. The cooler temperatures in qualifying and the race seemed to work well for us. We made a massive step from Friday, and I'm very grateful for it. If the DRS had been working yesterday, we could have been in the run for the win."
George Russell was ecstatic with his podium finish too, saying:
"I had a really strong start, and it was a first good stint. We pitted quite early on both stints and tried to keep the tyres out until the end, as well as pushing as fast as possible at the same time. Towards the end on the mediums when the rain started to come down, I struggled and lost temperature. It was challenging to manage the tyres, so there's lots to look into and see where we could've done better. Amazing job by the team, pole position yesterday and double podium today."
Mercedes boss urges humility, hopes to fight for wins
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff knows that the result in Hungary was a bit fortuitous. Thanks to Sergio Perez's poor qualifying and Charles Leclerc's suicidal strategy, the Mercedes boss cautioned against getting carried away, saying:
"We have a result we can work with, given we had a really bad Friday. It's very frustrating and not easy to pick yourself up and stay motivated, so it's a learning process. Today, we had good pace, but we need to stay humble and look at race weekend after race weekend, so we can try to gain more learnings and experiment to put us in a situation where we can actually fight for wins at the end of the season.
Can Mercedes build on their progress and win a race in the second half of the season? Their growth trajectory certainly points towards that.
