Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin says he is confident that the Silver Arrows are going to be stronger at the British Grand Prix, with an 'exciting' upgrade in the pipeline.

For the first time in the turbo-hybrid era, Mercedes are not seen as the favourites for a world championship, thanks to the start Red Bull have made to the campaign and their run of five victories in the last five races.

Of course, the Mercs have had challenges before in years prior but not to this extent or level and it really does look as though they have a proper fight on their hands to try and maintain their status as Constructors' champions, as well as Lewis Hamilton trying to remain Drivers' champion.

The British Grand Prix is next up next weekend, then, and with Silverstone a track that has seen strong Mercedes performances in the past, there will be a hope that they can respond and break the run Red Bull are on.

Indeed, Shovlin is cutting a positive figure ahead of the race, with him saying an 'exciting' update is on the way to be put on Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas' cars:

"The car hadn’t been working particularly well at Austria, so it had been very difficult trying to get the balance right and the engineers and the drivers were having to work very hard on that. It’s nice to get to the end of it,” Shovlin said in the team’s YouTube debrief.

“We are looking forward to Silverstone, we’ve got a good update coming there that’s quite exciting. We are looking forward to the home crowd, there is obviously a lot of Lewis fans that are going to be there, and it is also a track where our car has worked well.

“So, we’ve got a few days just to regroup, to analyse the results of those and turn around the cars and get them ready for the next race in that updated bodywork, but we are optimistic for a better weekend.”

Positive words if you're a Mercedes supporter ahead of the British Grand Prix, then, but ultimately it'll be the stopwatch that decides just how exciting these updates are going to prove to be.