Mercedes bringing updates to adapt the car to Lewis Hamilton's style

Mercedes director Andrew Shovlin has revealed that the new front wing brought to the car has the purpose of adapting the car to Lewis Hamilton's style. The German team brought its major upgrade in Monaco earlier this season, and that has contributed to the surge in form for the team.

Since then, Hamilton has secured podiums in Barcelona and Montreal and has been more competitive. During this time, the Mercedes driver has been able to outpace teammate George Russell as well. Russell had alluded in Austria that Hamilton was also struggling with the car after new upgrades.

By the looks of it, Mercedes is trying to mitigate that, and for that purpose, the team has brought a new front wing to Silverstone solely to adapt the car to Lewis Hamilton's style. Talking about the new upgrades, Andrew Shovlin told Sky Sports:

“When we made changes to the car in Monaco, it got a bit pointy and the front end is quite direct. And it’s a fine line between that being helpful to your driving style and it being a bit of a hindrance. Now with races like the sprint race, you’ve got no time to play with setup, so there’s some items we brought here to try and adapt the car a bit more towards Lewis’ style, but he’s very pragmatic."

He added:

“He’s taking a long-term view on this and he’s very focused on what is it I need to look at to test to try and find the improvements. We’ll chip away at that here, but he’s pretty calm in terms of helping us develop the car the way that we need to, and in the background, working on his own understanding of how to adapt the setup to his style.”

Mercedes looking to extend partnership with Lewis Hamilton

F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain - Practice

Lewis Hamilton has been with Mercedes for more than a decade now. He joined the team in 2013 and has been an integral part of the unit. Talking about the possibility of extending Hamilton's contract, Shovlin touched on how long the Briton has been a part of the team as he said:

“Quite a long time, isn’t it? But he’s doing really well, he’s very committed. We know what Lewis can do, and particularly when we give him the right car and he’s just been an integral part of this team’s success over the years. We all enjoy working with him and the longer he can keep it going, the better.”

With Lewis Hamilton's contract extension not getting announced in Silverstone as well, there have been a few questions around the delay. But by the looks of it, the deal seems to be closer to getting finalized now.