James Allison teases ‘substantial’ final Mercedes upgrade for the United States Grand Prix

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Mercedes is planning to bring a ‘substantial’ upgrade for the W15 at the United States Grand Prix, in a bid to solve from of its problems in the last few races.

Formula 1 has entered a four-week break in between races before two triple-headers and teams are using up the time to prepare their final upgrades for the year.

Mercedes has some work to do over this period having entered into the summer break off the back of three wins in four races, but have only achieved one podium since the restart after George Russell was gifted third at the end of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Things were worse for the team at the Singapore GP when Lewis Hamilton missed out on a podium after qualifying in third due to a poor tyre strategy, which was compounded by wear issues for both drivers.

Mercedes technical director James Allison has confirmed the team will be introducing a substantial upgrade at the upcoming US GP which should put them back on track to challenge for wins, when speaking on their Strategy Debrief video.

James Allison teases ‘substantial’ Mercedes upgrade for US GP

Mercedes reverted to its older specification floor in Baku in a bid to understand its performance fluctuations between Spa, Zandvoort and Monza.

With a big gap between Singapore and the US Grands Prix and no mandated factory shutdown like the summer break in August, Allison has confirmed Mercedes’ final upgrade for the W15 will make its debut at the Circuit of the Americas.

“We’ll be trying to figure out how to mitigate what ailed us this weekend how to make the tyres run better on these sort of overheating circuits and we’ll be also doing quite a lot of work to bring our last upgrade of the season together,” said Allison.

“We’ve got a fairly substantial set of new clothes for the car coming for Austin that we hope will give us a decent weekend.”

George Russell knew ‘moment’ Lewis Hamilton would be unhappy during Singapore GP

Hamilton finished the Singapore GP in sixth but 85 seconds off eventual winner Lando Norris and 24 seconds behind Russell.

The seven-time world champion was unhappy with their tyre gamble at the start of the race, which saw him start on soft tyres while everyone else around him started on medium tyres.

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Russell knew before the race that Hamilton would not approve of the start tyre choice, which pointed to him potentially no longer being part of the Mercedes pre-race briefings.

These pre-race briefings are used by teams to inform drivers of their strategy options, but it is likely that Hamilton is no longer part of these in the latter part of the season due to his move to Ferrari next year.