Mercedes still 'not good' despite upgrades, says Wolff

There was no silver bullet for the Silver Arrows this weekend, with the much-awaited new package of upgrades for the W14 not delivering the sort of quantum leap forward that the team had been hoping for.

After a heavy crash in final practice, Lewis Hamilton qualified in fifth place on Saturday and advanced one place during during Sunday's race to finish the Monaco GP just off the podium, with a bonus point for setting the fastest lap.

His team mate George Russell finished one place behind in fifth, having started from eighth on the grid. But everyone was aware that they had benefited from late-race mayhem arising from a late rain shower catching out Ferrari.

• Read also: Verstappen beats Alonso in rain-hit Monaco thriller

What the result said about the progress made by Mercedes and its new design approach was another matter, with team boss Toto Wolff sounding subdued.

Asked to assess the new upgrades, he told the media: “It’s so difficult because we were in the mix with Aston Martin and with Ferrari, I would say.

“It's more about understanding what does this car do now and how do we need to set it up," he explained. “We’re really good at grinding away once we decide the development direction.

“On a positive note, maybe it's encouraging because we have never been really good here," he continued. "The car was awful last year; this time around the drivers said it’s not good.

“We've been three tenths behind pole, last year was six tenths," he noted. “So there’s a step in description, but we really need to be careful.

"We’ve got to go to Barcelona, collect more data. It’s a new baseline," he added. “I don’t expect us clearing Aston Martin and Ferrari there either.”

But Lewis Hamilton was more upbeat coming out of this weekend's Grand Prix and felt that the team had indeed achieved real progress with the new design philosophy.

"It was difficult to know here in Monaco how the upgrades were performing," he admitted. There's lots of bumps and the car feels very stiff so it's tricky.

“But I’m really happy. We moved forwards. Coming into the weekend I didn’t know where we would stand,” he told Sky Sports F1. “So to come out fourth and fifth, we beat the Ferraris, it was really great points for the team.

"It’s a huge thank you to everyone back at the factory for pushing and bringing those upgrades," he added. “There’s so much work to bring those here and we kept in one piece and we brought it home.

"Barcelona is probably the best test circuit we could ask for in order to learn more about our package, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the car reacts."

"We cannot judge the upgrades from this circuit," agreed his team mate. "Barcelona will be the first real examination of it and it will be exciting to see how we perform.

"No matter what happens in Spain though, it will be interesting to learn and move forward from there," Russell added.

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