Mercedes could hand Lewis Hamilton and George Russell upgrades at Miami GP

Mercedes hope that the upgrades can help close the gap to Red Bull and Ferrari

George Russell (left) joined Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for the 2022 season (Getty Images)

Mercedes are set to make upgrades to George Russell and Lewis Hamilton’s cars as they bid to improve at the Miami Grand Prix.

The team have faced significant performance issues early in the 2022 Formula 1 season, with both drivers struggling to match the speed of Red Bull and Ferrari.

Russell is the only driver to finish in the top five at every race so far, but is yet to challenge for grand prix victory, while Hamilton was lapped by Max Verstappen during the course of the Dutchman’s cruise to victory at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Both have suggested that the problems are too big to be overcome and mount a realistic title challenge, and Hamilton emphatically declared himself out of the world championship hunt after missing out on points at Imola.

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, does not believe that solutions will be found overnight but hopes that alterations can show that the team are moving “in the right direction”.

“Hopefully soon, maybe as soon as Miami, we can start to bring some parts to the car that will hopefully give us an indication on whether we are moving in the right direction,” Shovlin explained in the team’s post-Imola debrief.

“We are not expecting to solve this overnight, but if we can get a clue that we are going in the right direction, that we really got to the bottom of what is going on, then we will be quite pleased that we are just moving on the right path.”

Mercedes have been troubled particularly by ‘porpoising’ after the offseason changes to car design regulations.

The issues appear likely to end their run of dominance over the Constructors’ Championship, which they have won every year since 2014.

Shovlin explained the extent of the difficulties that Mercedes are facing: “It’s obviously a bit of a cliche, but the reality is that we can’t run the car where we designed it to run.

“We’re having to run it at higher ride heights and by running higher ride heights, it’s got less performance. Now, that might be true for almost every car on the grid, lots of people are suffering with this problem and we know that lifting the car is a way of alleviating it.

“A lot of the work that’s gone on in Brackley, has been to understand the phenomenon and whether we can control it, whether we can engineer it out of the car. When Toto talks about finding the key, what he’s really talking about is, is there an aerodynamic solution that we can apply to this solution that will make this problem go away?

“Now, realistically, we think this will be something we approach in steps, rather than one big moment where the whole thing vanishes.”