Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted that the squad has been rushing through upgrades to its car, and that he's worried about not following their traditional protocols for development.
So far the hurry-up has paid off, with the W14 looking strong at the most recent race and able to outperform the likes of Ferrari and Aston Martin to returning in a double podium for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
The Red Bull is still very much out in fromt and Max Verstappen had an insurmountable advantage in the Spanish GP, leaving Wolff to caution that Mercedes still had a way to go to be contending for race wins.
“We just need to continue to grind away," he told the media last week. "It's not so much about how quick it is, it's about how good our understanding is.
“We've been rushing things over the last two months, and that worried us because it was a little bit circumventing the process," he acknowledged. "But so far it has paid off.
“[However] we need to manage our own expectations,” he continued. "I don't want to go to Canada and say that's another second and third there because it could as easily be a fifth and sixth. There is more to understand.”
Wolff pointed out how the team's fortunes had swung wildly over the course of last weekend, with a poor time in Friday practice followed by a disappointing Saturday outcome.
“We were really upset in qualifying because we believed P2, P3 was in, and it wasn't," he sighed.
The Spanish GP was the first race in a several weeks to have been run on a traditional permanent circuit rather than a street track such as as Miami or Monaco.
With the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya well known to the teams after years of hosting pre-season testing, Wolff said that success there usually prefigured a good run over the rest of the season.
“They normally say if you’re quick in Barcelona then the car should generally be good everywhere," he agreed. "I think we will be strong in the next races.
“There will be times when the Aston may be slightly ahead, or the Ferrari maybe is ahead., but I think our race pace continues to be a strength of ours as it was last year."
Wolff stressed again that the key to success was getting a better understanding of the car which has proved to be a difficult beast for Hamilton and Russell to get to grips with on a consistent basis.
“I think [last] weekend particularly we’ve understood the car even more," Wolff said. "So I think we can count on that being strong moving forward.
"We’ve just got to try to lift the overall performance of the car a little bit more to try to close the gap to these guys," he added, indicating the Red Bull team who remain out of reach of anyone else on the grid at the moment.
Mercedes' success last week has moved them ahead of the Aston Martin team in the constructors championship and into second, but they are still 135 points behind Red Bull.
Verstappen and his team mate Sergio Perez continue to dominate the drivers standings despite two poor outings in Monaco and Spain for the Mexican compared with his team leader.
And Fernando Alonso holds on to third place despite his first finish outside the top four in his native Spain. Hamilton is now 12 points away from the Aston driver and Russell a similar gap further behind.
The question is now whether Mercedes can maintain its positive development trajectory, and whether Aston has anything in the pipeline with which to respond and keep in contention over the remaining 15 races of the 2023 season.
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