Lewis Hamilton hopes Mercedes will be in a position to fight for wins by the British Grand Prix at the start of July.
After a difficult first five races, the seven-time world champion produced a brilliant drive in Spain to go from P19, 30 seconds behind the field at the end of Lap 1, to run fourth before overheating issues dropped him to fifth in the closing laps.
The reason for the significant performance gains was a raft of car upgrades that largely solved the porpoising problems that have blighted Mercedes' season so far.
Although Hamilton concedes the team is still some way from where they want to be.
“It’s not turned around yet, but we’re, we’re almost done,” he said on Friday in Monaco.
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“We’re not on the right path yet, but we’re nearly on the right path. We’re working towards it.
“If we were on the right path, we would be winning races, but we’ve come a long, long way.
“There’s been amazing work done in the background and we understand the car a lot more and we understand more of the direction that we need to go so yes, we are on a better track because we were on the wrong track before.
“I’m just excited for the work that everyone’s doing in the background, and I’m excited to hopefully be back in the fight soon.”
Reminded that it is just five weeks until the British GP, where Hamilton has won seven of the last eight races, the 37-year-old hopes Mercedes will have made enough further gains to be on the same level as Ferrari and Red Bull.
“I’m hoping by then we are where we plan to be,” he said. “I know everyone back at the factory is working as hard as they can to continue to make advances with the car and I have no doubts that we will.
“I’m hoping by Silverstone we have the car when we need, at least by then, to be able to fight these guys for the win. That’s what I’m working every day for so that we can fight on our home turf and give them the best race we can.”
