Christian Horner believes Mercedes will upgrade W12 sooner rather than later

Red Bull Racing chief Christian Horner seems suspicious of Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s claim that they won’t upgrade their car anymore. Mercedes are currently lagging behind in the fight for the F1 world driver’s and constructor’s championships. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen leads the driver’s standings while his team lead the constructor’s standings. Given Mercedes’ dominance of the sport since 2014, Horner believes they won’t go a whole year without one upgrade. “We know Toto loves to throw the light somewhere else,” he told reporters at the Red Bull Ring. “I cannot believe they’ll go through the rest of this year without putting a single component on the car.

“All we can do is focus on our own job. It’s a balancing act between this year and next year but if that means we’ve got to work a bit harder we’re fully up for it.

“You’re at the top of the curve with these cars and into marginal gains. When you look at the new car for next year, every time it goes through a development cycle it’s significant steps.

“It’s getting the balance right between marginal gains for this year and big steps for next year. But that’s no different to how it’s been in the past.”

Nevertheless, Christian Horner said he’s pleased with the kind of form Red Bull have shown in recent times.

“To have won the last four races across the types of circuits we’ve had is the best run we’ve had since 2013,” he said.

“We’re back here next weekend and we saw last year that even though you had two races at the same circuit the second race can be quite different to the first – track conditions, weather, etc.

“We’ve just got to take each race one by one and try to optimise our performance.”

What did Toto Wolff say about Mercedes and upgrades?

Wolff ruled out making any upgrades on the car. The Austrian, who’s overseen Mercedes’ run of dominance since 2014, believes working on the new car for 2022 is more important.

This is, of course, because of the new regulation changes that will see a whole new type of car race on the tracks. It also will lead to constraints on spending.

It is worth noting that the last time regulation changes of this scale took place was in 2014, when the V6 turbo-hybrid engine era began. Mercedes have won every single driver’s and constructor’s championship in that era.

Thus, as the time comes to build for the future, Wolff is more focused on the long term.

“We have stopped developing for this year because we believe the next years are so important to get right,” he said.

“We are having new regulations not only for next year but for years to come, a completely different car concept, and you’ve got to choose the right balance.

“It would make no sense to put a week or two or a month back on the current car, because the gains wouldn’t be anywhere near the gains we are making on the 2022 car.

“Having said that, this is far from over. We will be winning races this season, and we will be having pole positions, and we will be fighting as much as we can for every single result.”

Hamilton wants upgrades to battle Christian Horner and Red Bull

After the Styrian GP, Hamilton too spoke of the need for finding pace from somewhere.

“Naturally they are just faster than us. There’s not a lot I can do in that respect. I’ve just got to keep trying to do the best job I can each weekend.

“We really need to find some performance. We need an upgrade of some sort, we need to push. I don’t know whether it’s just the rear wing, or it’s the upgrade in the engine, or whatever it may be.

“But we’ve got to find some performance from somewhere.”

However, Hamilton admitted that any upgrades seemed unlikely.

“Naturally I would love to have upgrades and improvements but I don’t think that’s currently on the cards,” he added. “When we do a debrief we’ll chat about it but that’s how it is at the moment.

“We’re the world champions and we can definitely improve if we put our minds to it. But if we’re not going to develop and improve our car for the rest of the year, this is the result you are going to see.”