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Mercedes needs to arrest a five-race string of defeats at the British Grand Prix this weekend to reignite its world championship campaign, meaning the return to a Silverstone circuit Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described as a Silver Arrows “stronghold” could potentially be well-timed.
But while some car characteristics that make a car successful at a circuit can carry over from one year to another, Red Bull’s recent form will also give Horner and Max Verstappen hope that they can repeat their victory in the second Silverstone race last year to maintain momentum in the world championship fight.
“Silverstone is the next challenge and it’s a challenge with the sprint race as well,” said Horner.
“We know it’s such a stronghold for Mercedes and it’s going to be fascinating to see if we can take this [Red Bull Ring] form into what is our next home race.
“We’ve certainly found a working window with the car over the last few races and I think that hopefully we can work within that window at Silverstone.”
Mercedes certainly has an outstanding record at Silverstone during the 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrid era, taking all eight pole positions and winning six grands prix.
The first of its two defeats came in the 2018 British GP thanks to Hamilton wheelspinning off the line and slipping to third before being tipped into a spin by Kimi Raikkonen at Turn 3. He recovered to second, with Sebastian Vettel, who took the lead off the line, winning for Ferrari.
The second was in last year’s second Silverstone race, the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. Having had problems with front tyre wear the previous weekend, Mercedes struggled badly with rear blistering and Verstappen was able to get ahead of both Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to win.
The only circuit where Mercedes has a better record than Silverstone over so many races in the hybrid era is Barcelona. There, it has a 100% rate of pole positions and has taken seven victories in eight attempts.
Its only defeat there was in 2016 when Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg collided on the run to Turn 4 on the first lap, allowing Verstappen to take an unexpected victory on his debut for the Red Bull team.
But Mercedes does also have a 100% win record at Suzuka, with six out of six across 2014-19. But that run was interrupted by last year’s Japanese GP being cancelled because of COVID-19.
Suzuka, Silverstone and Barcelona are a trio of circuits that have historically favoured the cars with the most downforce. Given Mercedes did have the fastest car in Spain this year, despite Verstappen taking the lead at the start and leading the majority of the race, that could be a good sign for Silverstone. But it’s not quite as simple as that, not least because the Red Bull is hardly lacking for downforce.
Mercedes also does have some bodywork updates to introduce this weekend, and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has described the team as more optimistic.
“It’s fair to say that Austria is a track that over the years, we have struggled at,” said Shovlin. ”It’s a difficult circuit and one that doesn’t seem to suit our car and we are trying to understand those issues.
“Silverstone on the contrary though, is one that we have tended to go very well at and also Lewis really enjoys that circuit. Some of it is the layout and the high-speed nature but also the fantastic support he has there from the home crowd.
“So, we are looking forward to it, it’s still going to be a challenging race weekend. We’ve got the sprint format to contend with, but hopefully we can put on a better showing and take that fight to Red Bull.”
The Red Bull Ring certainly is towards opposite end of the scale for Mercedes, but it’s telling that in 10 hybrid-era visits, it still has a 50% victory rate. However, Red Bull’s advantage was clear during the Styrian and Austrian GP weekends so things need to be different at Silverstone.
But it’s far from a foregone conclusion it will. Silverstone is no longer a circuit that’s purely about maximising high-speed downforce and has, in recent years with the high-downforce cars, become more of a compromise circuit.
The Red Bull, with its capacity to generate efficient downforce and produce good straightline speed, when carrying less wing could well still be the car to have.
Mercedes can at least hope to be more of a threat than it was last time out at the Red Bull Ring.
But ultimately, history is of very little value when it comes to predicting future performance.
And that’s the trouble with strongholds. They all fall eventually.
