Lewis Hamilton has said that he is pleased with the upgrades Mercedes have brought to their car in recent weeks and feels as though they have closed the gap to Red Bull in performance.

The Silver Arrows were beginning to be left in the wake of their title rivals but momentum has swung back towards them over the last couple of races, in part thanks to some Mercedes upgrades that appear to have levelled the playing field somewhat in terms of performance.

Indeed, Hamilton is pleased with what his team have managed to do, and praise them for their hard work as he reflected on being able to overhaul the recent points gap Max Verstappen had built up in the standings.

“It’s definitely been a hard slog for us,” Hamilton said after the Hungarian Grand Prix. “The others, those guys with their update they had.

“I think probably a combination of things, but they took an excellent step once we got to that midpoint, Monaco onwards. [It] was intense," he added.

“The upgrade really has worked, and then we’ve just been working on our procedures through the weekend and trying to extract more from the car, and I think now we’re a lot closer.

“[Hungary was] very strong, and definitely surprising to see how strong it is compared to them [Red Bull], so [I’m] proud of everyone back at the factory, who continued to not give up.”

The F1 title race is mighty close this season and it could be the finest of margins that decide where the Drivers' and Constructors' crowns end up.

That said, both Mercedes and Red Bull will be working frenetically after the summer break to try and give their men the edge in the second half of the campaign.