Mercedes' performance improvements and "bulletproof" reliability make Lewis Hamilton and George Russell "dark horses" for victory at the French Grand Prix.
That is the view of ex- Formula 1 racer Jolyon Palmer, who believes the Silver Arrows are close to racing at the front again. The team has been a long way off the pace, having failed to nail their car design for the 2022 season amid a swathe of technical rule changes.
But they have been slowly and steadily been making progress as the year has unfolded. Though they are still incapable of genuinely challenging Red Bull and Ferrari, they are far closer than they were before.
And former Renault racer Palmer believes their next outing at Paul Ricard could be the weekend that Mercedes announce themselves as contenders for race wins once again. "We're halfway through a season where few would have expected Mercedes to have barely had a sniff of victory so far and have a best finish of third," he wrote in his Formula 1 column.
"The Silver Arrows, prodigiously strong for the past decade, built a car with the all-new regulations that seems to have some fundamental flaws. Its level of bouncing has meant the team have been chasing their tail trying to troubleshoot their problems. Incredibly, given the performance of their car, the team have still managed to finish a race weekend on the podium more often than not so far."
He credited the remarkable reliability of the W13 for their strong results despite a relative lack of pace, but now believes Mercedes are ready to compete without having rely on failures from Red Bull and Ferrari. Palmer added: "There are signs now, though, that they are getting on top of it and are merging back towards being genuine front-runners once more.
"It's better to look at Hamilton’s race pace for the genuine pace of the Merc in Austria, and once again it looked on Sunday to be a fairly close match to the dominant Ferrari of Charles Leclerc after the seven-time champ hit clear air. This is why he managed to overcut a string of midfielders.
"The French Grand Prix up next is one of the smoothest circuits, made up of predominantly medium and high-speed corners. Mercedes have always gone well there in the past, and it surely poses their best chance of fighting for victory on merit so far this year."
