Mercedes to go 'full attack', but could split strategies - Wolff

Mercedes will likely go for an aggressive strategy in this afternoon's British Grand Prix where Lewis Hamilton will start on pole while Valtteri Bottas will launch his race from fourth on the grid.

The Finn looked like having a shot at a front-row seat alongside his team mate, but a mistake in the last few corners in qualifying set him back to P4 behind Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen.

Moving Bottas up the order to help Hamilton fend off a touch threat from Ferrari could imply using different strategies in the Mercedes camp.

"We will be going full attack," said Wolff.

"Part of that could be two different strategies, trying to be aggressive.

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"It is a tough championship. The gaps are very marginal, it swings from race to race, and a few thousandths makes all the difference.

"If we can stay in the lead, I think Lewis at Silverstone, he’s a force. But obviously if you’re being overtaken at the start or on the first lap, then the whole thing becomes trickier," said Wolff.

Bottas was also expecting the German outfit to get a bit creative to help him boost his prospects.

"Yeah, we definitely need to find a way," said the Finn.

"Every race now, it’s going to be extremely important for us to try to get more points than Ferrari, and for myself, I think I'm only sixth in the drivers' standings, so for sure I need to start getting those bigger points.

"I think for Lewis, if he gets a good getaway, then it's normally more straightforward, but we'll see."

High temperatures forecasted for Sunday afternoon coupled with Silverstone's degrading surface means tyre management will be paramount, but Bottas believes Mercedes has the edge ove its rival in that department.

"We've seen they suffered with blistering [on Friday], we didn’t," he added.

"But [Sunday]'s again a new day and we're going to be seeing longer stints than in practice two. So there are still a lot of question marks.

"It's going to be an extremely close race with Ferrari, and a lot is going to be down to who can really take care of the tyres, and not overheat or blister them too much."

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