Mercedes encouraged by updates: 'The gap is only small'

Since the start of the new regulations, Mercedes has had a tough time. The team didn't win a race in 2023. The last victory for Mercedes came courtesy of George Russell in 2022 at the Brazilian Grand Prix. The last victory for Lewis Hamilton dates back to 2021, in Saudi Arabia.

Mercedes has regained hope

Mercedes has brought new upgrades to Imola. These seem to be working. George Russell finished second in the first free practice and fifth in the second free practice. Respectively, Lewis Hamilton finished seventh and fourth. One of Mercedes' trackside engineers, Andrew Shovlin, is delighted with Friday's session in Imola. "We've had a productive day today. The car has been working well across the two sessions and we have been able to improve on the balance over the course of the day. The updates we have here all seem to be doing what we expect, which is encouraging," said Shovlin.

The team remains realistic, though. Indeed, there have been races where Hamilton and Russell performed very well in free practice, but still lacked speed in qualifying and the race. "The experience of the last few races has taught us that we have quite a gap to close,'' Shovlin continued. "We are hoping to close that gap progressively with developments over the next few events. There's still plenty that we can work on for both single-lap and long-run performance in the meantime. The gaps ahead aren't that big so we'll be looking hard to find a bit of additional speed overnight.'' Concluded the British engineer.