Mercedes has put much of its troubles this season, such as Lewis Hamilton's failure to make Q3 in Monaco as well as its defeats in Australia and Bahrain, down to its struggles to get the tyres into the correct temperature window, but that's beginning to change according to team boss Toto Wolff.
The new Pirelli tyres demand a strict warm-up and management process to ensure they operate at their peak, but that's also directly related to the chassis setup, and Mercedes have been doing a lot of work to better understand the link between the two.
Wolff has warned Mercedes' rivals that they're now finding that "sweet spot" on a more regular basis, noted by Hamilton's Montreal domination and what would have been a victory in Baku had his headrest not become detached.
"We have made a step since Monaco in understanding what it takes to make our car perform," explained Wolff. "The sweet spot is still difficult to find – but we are starting to do so more regularly.
"Clearly, we are not the only team who took time to understand the combination of the new regulations and tyres – but we are making progress, step by step. And we must continue to do so in the next two weekends to maximise our points score."
Mercedes have a buffer of 24 points in the Constructors' Standings and have won every Austrian GP since the circuit returned to the calendar in 2014, but Wolff isn't relying on previous results as an indication of how the team's weekend will play out.
"Happily, it [Austria] has been positive ground for Mercedes over the last three years. But we cannot rely on our historic success rate in Spielberg because the regulations are brand new.
"We start again from the ground up on Friday morning and will aim to come out of the blocks well in FP1. In a season as close as this, we have to if we are going to be on the top step at the end of the year."
