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Laurence Edmondson, F1 Editor
SILVERSTONE, Great Britain — Lewis Hamilton has described McLaren’s improved performance during qualifying at the British Grand Prix as a “wake-up call” for his Mercedes team.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualified second and third at Silverstone behind runaway championship leader Max Verstappen, while Hamilton ended up seventh fastest behind Mercedes teammate George Russell in sixth.
McLaren’s improvement follows an upgrade to Norris’ car at last week’s Austrian Grand Prix, where he finished fourth, which has now also been applied to Piastri’s car along with further smaller updates to Norris’ car in Silverstone.
Asked if it was a blow to see McLaren ahead of Mercedes at a track that was expected to suit his car, Hamilton said: “It’s not a blow, it’s just a wake-up call for us.
“Others are overtaking us. We need to do more.”
He added: “If you look at the car it makes sense. If you put it alongside a Red Bull it’s looks very, very similar down the sides.
“And it’s working, and that’s great, to have them up in the mix, which is what we want to see in this sport.
“I’m really happy for them, they’ve had a bad run for so long. To be back up there is really, really great to see.”
A number of teams, including Aston Martin, have taken clear inspiration from Red Bull’s championship-leading car design this year, but Mercedes has stuck to its own concept.
Team boss Toto Wolff said his engineers explored some of Red Bull’s concepts in the wind tunnel but without significant improvements.
“I think from what you see from the outside, which is only half of the information, the [McLaren] car looks like a Red Bull,” Wolff said. “As a matter of fact, to be honest, it doesn’t matter, because only the stopwatch counts.
“This is what I guess Lewis was referring to, because this design seems to be a good direction. But it is easier said than done and each of us had bodywork that looked like the Red Bull in the [wind] tunnel and it didn’t come in up in performance.
“So, you have got to leave no stone unturned and maybe do it again because another team has just found a second in performance.”
Wolff believes the improvements of both McLaren and Aston Martin this year is proof that big steps in performance can be made under F1’s regulations.
“I think it is very encouraging to see that Aston Martin found massive chunks of lap time from last year to this year, and in the same way you see in the season McLaren doing that.
“That is something that you need to take your hat off to, and if we see that consolidating, certainly for us it is a good example of how you can turn around things.”