Mercedes hoping to fight for race wins 'by the end of the season'

Mercedes hopes that its current development programme and the ongoing progress it is enjoying will carry the Brackley squad back to the winner's circle in F1 by the end of the season.

Mercedes introduced a new front suspension and a heavily revised floor/sidepod package in Monaco last month, but Barcelona and Canada provided a better validation of the changes.

Slowly but surely, the German outfit's W14 contender is settling in as the second best car on the grid along With Aston Martin's AMR23 machine.

But Mercedes chief technical officer Mike Elliott, while pleased with the W14's step forward, reckons that additional development will inch the team's black arrow ever closer to Red Bull and eventually give the latter's dominant RB19 a proper run for its money.

"It is really nice to be now racing at least for podiums, being able to show what we are capable of doing," Elliott said in the team’s post-race debrief video on YouTube.

"Hopefully we can turn that into more upgrades, more performance over the races to come and hopefully start fighting for some victories by the end of the season."

• Read also: Wolff outlines Mercedes' summer update schedule

Mercedes had adopted a cautious stance ahead of last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, due to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's layout that featured several low-speed corners in which Mercedes' car has typically struggled this year.

But Lewis Hamilton's podium finish and the team's overall performance in overall left the Brackley squad absolutely satisfied with its weekend.

"We are really pleased to say that it has done what we expected," Elliott said, referring to the team's latest upgrade package. "It’s helped the car move forward and we are generally more competitive.

"We said before the weekend that Canada will be a more difficult circuit for us; it's mainly low speed corners and straights, something that hasn’t been brilliant for us in the past.

"So, to come out of this weekend to qualify with the cars fourth and fifth, promoted to third and fourth and then to race in a strong way, beaten by Alonso but for Lewis to race to third and in George's case to show strong performance up until his crash I think it is a good result for us and hopefully something we can take into the next few races."

With another update scheduled to be rolled out at Silverstone next month, and with faster tracks upcoming on the calendar, Elliott is confident that a productive summer lies ahead for Mercedes.

"I think where we have seen the car struggling is more in the low-speed corners," he explained.

"So if we start looking at circuits that have got more medium and high-speed content; we think we will do better there.

"So, Silverstone will be a good example of that. Austria shouldn’t be too bad for us either. So let's hope we go well on both of those."

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