Mercedes will upgrade car in pursuit of Red Bull in F1 2021 title race

James Allison has revealed that Mercedes plans to bring performance upgrades to its car in a bid to overhaul Red Bull in this year’s Formula 1 championship.
Second fastest Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Mercedes AMG F1 W12 in qualifying parc ferme.
Second fastest Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Mercedes AMG F1 W12 in qualifying parc ferme.
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Mercedes was comprehensively beaten by Red Bull last time out at the Styrian Grand Prix as Max Verstappen finished over 35 second▨s clear of Lewis Hamilton.

After the race, Tꩵoto Wolff confirmed Mercedes would not be upgrading its car for the rest of the seas꧋on,🍃 stating it was fully focused on the 2022 regulations.

Speaking to the , Allison - wh𒐪o is Mercedes’ technical director - said that Mercedes will upgrade its car in 2021.

“W♌e have a reasonable number of things that are going to make our car faster in theꦗ coming races, and let's hope they prove sufficient,” Allison said.

He dismissed suggestions that his comments were at odds with Wolff’s aforementione🌼d ones.

“I don't think those two things are at odds with each o๊ther. And I don’t think Toto has said precisely tha🅘t,” Allison added.

“What Toto points out is that next year'꧟s rules are a big and hairy affair, and that they demand a huge amount of our attention. So most of the focus of our factory has switched over to next year, the performance discovery for next year.

“But that doesn't mean that there aren't things still in the food-chain from prior 🥂to that focus switch. And furthermore, it isn't all of the factory. And furthermore, we're only one of two factories, there's also the PU factory and there is a little bit more to come also from the PU.

“So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing. A little bit on the PU, we hope, on the delivery side, and just a few thin♓gs that are not quite as tidy as we would wish, that we still have got the opportunity to put right while this season is still very muc🍌h alive and hot.”

Allison admit🥀ted that the changes to the floo𒐪r area ahead of the season have made it difficult for Mercedes to find gains during the season.

“Ever since the rule changes that were introduced aerodynamically for looking after the tyres, we have found it hellishly hard to find the sort of performance gain rate that we did previously prior to those rules," Allison explained. "So that has made our life trickier than we wished ❀it to be.”

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