Team representative Bradley Lord has challenged Mercedes to “finish on the podium at every event” between now and the end of the season. The Silver Arrows are locked in a tight battle to finish second in the constructors’ championship and were leapfrogged by Ferrari last time out at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Second place for Charles Leclerc and eighth for Lewis Hamilton saw the Scuderia leave Mexico with 22 points – eight more than Mercedes managed with Kimi Antonelli crossing the line sixth, one place ahead of George Russell. It means Ferrari are now second in the standings, though just one point ahead while fourth-placed Red Bull are also very much in the mix, only 10 behind.
Many teams are mostly focused on the 2026 season now and the same is true for Mercedes, though they are keen to end the year with bragging rights over their rivals. With that goal in mind, team representative Lord feels they have a car good enough to be on the podium in each of the four remaining rounds, which would likely force Ferrari to match that feat to beat them.
In a video released by the team, he said: “Obviously, the main focus in the factories is now very much on 2026 and both sites are absolutely flat out with development, with production for next year’s car and next year’s power unit too.
“In terms of this season, we know that we’ve got a race to maximise the package we’ve got. We know as well that that is a package good enough to be finishing on the podium at every event, if we get everything right, if we have clean first corners, good starts, clean lap one and things fall our way.
“That didn’t happen in Mexico, so the focus for Brazil is really getting the starting setup in the right place. It’s a Sprint weekend, we’ve only got one hour of practice and we’re straight into sprint qualifying on Friday afternoon, so you need to hit the ground running
“We managed that pretty successfully in Austin, if you remember, George was I think third or fourth on the grid for the Sprint and then finished second. So we’ve had good results this year on Sprint weekends so far. We need to capitalise on that, make sure Kimi’s up there in the top five, top six as well and able to bring his contribution to the point scoring and then hopefully again build some more advantage in that fight for P2.
“We’ve fallen just behind Ferrari and we know it’s going to be nail-bitingly close until the final lap in Abu Dhabi but that’s what every single team member is focused on achieving.”
