Valtteri Bottas believes that Mercedes need to improve its high downforce package in order to avoid a tricky run in to the 2017 Formula 1 season. Mercedes has clearly struggled at high downforce tracks such as Monte Carlo and the Hungaroring, where rivals Ferrari took home one-two finishes in both qualifying and the race.
F1 will return from its summer break in just under two weeks time, where the paddock will arrive in Belgium at the Spa-Francorchamps. That and the proceeding race at Monza is expected to play to the strengths of the Silver Arrows who appear to hold the advantage at high-speed circuits.
Bottas said that the Singapore Grand Prix is one race that is causing concern for the Brackley squad: "I really think the next at least two races on paper should be a bit better for us [than Hungary] compared to Ferrari," Bottas said. "But I think we’ve made some good progress.
"We definitely do have work to do, they are quick through the corners, and we need to work on that, we need to work on our maximum-downforce package, that’s the main thing. There are still a lot of tracks to come that require a lot of downforce. Spa is more about efficiency, Monza is very low-downforce, then Singapore is about downforce again. We are really working hard and trying to get the car better, because if we don’t make any progress, it’s going to be a tricky season, for sure."
Fergal Walsh
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Downforce and a diet. The diet can be harder for them to achieve this year, though I fear that if they achieve such weight reduction they would become as dominant as they've been the last few years.