Valterri Bottas: Mercedes upgrades “should give us more performance”

Mercedes started the season off with a bang, dominating the start of the season but have been out shone by Ferrari since the summer break.
 
The upgrades being brought in for the race in Japan is a small sidepod aero upgrade which Bottas and the team will gather data from in practice.
 
"We have a pretty solid update package this weekend. Obviously getting a tryout tomorrow, but in theory yes, it should give us more performance," said Bottas (quoted by Motorsport.com).

"How much [it works] is something we'll find out. We have some rough numbers about it, but should be a decent step, in terms of upgrade packages so far.
 
"It's been a pretty good car this year, but it is again a track with a mixture of different things.

"There are some decent straights where we definitely have a disadvantage compared to Ferrari, so they're going to be gaining time to us there.

"But there's some good sections full of corners, which we know we are good in, and hopefully with the upgrade package will be even better.

"We've already in the second half had tracks that we thought they should be quite good for us, and they've been able to beat us.

"For sure, if they perform better than us here, it means we need to work harder if we're going to be beating them next year."

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