10/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are left seriously impressed by the pace of the McLaren.
If Saturday's qualifying performance from McLaren was the wake-up call for Mercedes that Hamilton claimed it to be, this morning the alarms at Brackley should be in danger of waking the dead.
Following the Safety Car period, armed with softs, while Lando Norris was on hards, passing the McLaren should have been a mere formality for the seven-time world champion.
Not so. For while he was able to almost make a move on his fellow-Briton at Copse, the sheer pace of the MCL60 was enough to keep him at bay.
"That McLaren is a rocket ship," Hamilton told his team over the radio. "That speed is insane."
Meanwhile, teammate George Russell, who was in pursuit of Oscar Piastri, issued a similar message: "That McLaren is so quick on hards," he said.
Speaking at race end, Hamilton heaped praise on Norris and his old team.
"I just want to say a big congratulations to Lando and to McLaren," he said. "It was my family, it was where I first started. So to see them back up there looking so strong.
"That thing was rapid through the high-speed corners," he laughed. "I was just 'wow'. I couldn't keep up, but we had a good little battle on the restart.
"Once he goes through Turn 15 he is gone," said the Mercedes driver. "We had good performance in the low speed corners but just didn't have the grunt on the straights. But I'm really happy to know that starting seventh and coming third is a mega, mega job.
"I think this is a good positive for us as a team to know that we're not that far away," he insisted. "We have just got to keep on pushing and we can catch those guys up front."
Toto Wolff admits that following the Safety Car period, with Hamilton and Russell on softs and the McLarens on hards, he expected his drivers to 'eat up' their Woking rivals.
"To be honest when the Safety Car was deployed I was pretty sure, if not convinced, that we would be eating up the McLarens and finish with a P2 and P3 or maybe even challenge up the road," said the Austrian. "So you see just how strong their car was.
"We could have had a go in the first few laps, but they both raced a very strong hand and with their efficiency and top speed through the high-speed corners and on the straights there was just no way in passing them."
"I thought it was going to be clear cut, Lewis and I P2 and P3, see you later," agreed Russell. "I couldn't believe how well they turned on the tyres.
"Perhaps if they put the soft on their car it may not have worked the same way as it worked on ours," he added. "Equally if we had the hards on, it probably wouldn't have worked the same way as it did on their car.
"But medium/hard was definitely the wrong strategy," he insisted, "the softs were certainly the best tyre. They were a good one-and-a half to two-tenths ahead of us.
"I see no reason why they shouldn't be up there now," he said of the Woking team. "We've come from the Red Bull Ring which is a very different circuit to Silverstone, they were a small step ahead of us on both occasions so I don't know how they've found this much performance.
"We don't tend to focus too much on our competitors, we just need to keep focusing on ourselves. It gives me inspiration that it can be possible to catch up, but we need to try and turn it up."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Silverstone here.