Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin has said that it would be 'naive' of the Silver Arrows to expect the same result at the Hungaroring this weekend after their victory at the British Grand Prix last time out.
The Mercs hit back in the championship fight in dramatic style just over a week ago as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen's lap one crash paved the way for the Briton and his team to really reduce the deficit in both the Drivers' and Constructors' standings.
That has gone now, though, and whilst Mercedes showed decent pace for much of that weekend, Shovlin has tempered expectations of similar performance playing out in Budapest at the end of this week, with him also expecting a real fightback from Red Bull after they came away from Silverstone with just three points thanks to their Sprint win on Saturday.
Shovlin explained:
“This [Silverstone] is one of our best tracks, so it would be naive of us to think that we could go there and expect to carry this performance in.
“Red Bull are going to be good at a high-downforce circuit. Frankly, they’re good at every circuit at the moment and they’re going to be a bit bruised after the experience [at Silverstone], so I’m sure that they’re going to come back really strong.
“We’re about halfway through the championship, there’s very fine margins in terms of the points and for us, we’re just going to throw everything at it now to try to get through and if we can get ourselves ahead going into the summer break that would be fantastic,” said Shovlin.
“So that’s probably the target that we’ll set ourselves, but I think it’s a stretch target.
“But we’ve shown [at Silverstone] that anything’s possible. You’ve just got to keep going and try to get better, try to improve. And they’re a difficult team to beat, but we’re a strong team.”
Certainly, you would expect a big response from Red Bull and Max Verstappen this weekend coming after the drama that played out at Copse on Sunday afternoon at the British Grand Prix.
It's the last race before the summer break, and both teams will be wanting to make a big statement heading into the off-period.