Mercedes will keep pushing

With the Formula One circus set to return to Europe for the next couple of months many in the paddock believe that the development race will crank up a notch.

With the exception of the Canadian Grand Prix in June, Formula One is completely based in Europe between now and the early September.

With eight of the next nine races coming across Europe, the teams will be working closer with their factories and bases, something which over the opening four rounds of the season in Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain and China has been somewhat of a logistical challenge.

With teams able to work closer with the factories, the development race will heat up significantly as the teams continue to learn about their new cars under the new Formula One regulations.

With Mercedes stealing a march on their rivals Red Bull Racing, Ferrari, McLaren and others, many experts believe that the gap will close up once the developments and upgrades begin to filter through to the track.

Are Mercedes already operating at their optimum performance? If so then the other teams will have more scope for improvement.

This appears to be the general consensus with some journalists in the media, but at Mercedes, they feel they too have more developments and improvements to come.

‘We’re not sitting comfortably that’s for sure. We’ve got more work to do, The Red Bull is very, very fast through the high-speed, which tells me they maybe have a little bit more downforce than us. Last year was a massive gap between how much downforce they had [compared to what Mercedes had]. We’ve definitely closed that up but I think we can do a better job, we can do more. Lewis Hamilton told Sky Sports.

‘So we’re going to keep pushing on that and undoubtedly Mercedes are going to keep pushing and I feel comfortable that they’ll keep getting better in terms of the engine.’

Whilst team-mate and current Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg was equally as confident in the team.

‘it’s really important to keep on it because the chances for the teams behind us to catch up are much bigger than, for example, if we were being in the same situation last year because the development is just going to be huge this year.’