Mercedes keen to closely analyse McLaren upgrades

Mercedes says it will take a close look at the upgrades that have significantly boosted the performance of its rival McLaren in the last two races.

McLaren introduced in Austria two weeks ago the first installment of a development package that it planned to deploy over three race.

Lando Norris finished fourth at Spielberg but last weekend at Silverstone, the Briton and teammate Oscar Piastri – whose MCL60 was updated for the British Grand Prix – were only outpaced in qualifying by the unassailable Red Bull of Max Verstappen.

On race day, Norris held his own and finished runner up to the championship leader while a well-timed pitstop by Mercedes under the Safety Car in the second part of the race allowed Lewis Hamilton to seize third place from Piastri.

But McLaren's performance has clearly impressed the Mercedes camp, which will now closely examine for its own benefit the many photographs of the MCL60's updates that are in its possession.

• Read also: Norris reveals area where McLaren car remains 'pretty terrible

"We keep an eye on all the teams as they upgrade," said Mercedes technical director James Allison in the team's British Grand Prix debrief on YouTube. "We note when something new or unusual comes along.

"The interesting and unusual thing about the McLaren upgrade is that its lap time effect is quite strong. It's unusual to have a step of that size of relative competitiveness in the middle of a season and chapeau to them.

"They've done a good piece of work there, but that also makes it interesting for us because we have the before and after shots and we know the lap time effect was big.

"We know that whatever changed has made a meaningful difference to their lap time. It's quite useful for us to know what that was and see whether it can play into our own thoughts of developing our own car."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff suggested last weekend that the Brackley squad was on the verge of channeling all its resources towards its 2024 car.

But Allison insists more developments will be brought to its W14 over the summer.

"For us yes, you will see the upgrades coming for a little while longer. I suspect for the others too," he added.

"What you will get in this next sequence of races is a little bit of yo-yoing for position in a very closely packed bunch as upgrades make the difference for one team for a while, until someone else will come out of sequence with another upgrade a race or two later to even things back out.

"Where it will all settle down for the final quarter to one third of a season, we will see."

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter