The warning within Mercedes' greatest pain

Disastrous is the only word to describe Mercedes' result during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, with another strategic blunder and a double retirement after running one-two in the early stages. But the team has a very good reason to be extremely happy with one aspect of the weekend.

The major aerodynamic upgrade package introduced at the start of Friday practice worked very well and, on top of the phase 2.1 engine introduced for the French GP a weekend earlier, it suggests Mercedes has taken a potentially decisive step forward in terms of pace.

After all, the ongoing development war between Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull is what will decide the outcome of this year's championship. Long gone are the days of a single mid-season update, which was often called the B-spec.

Now, we see updates at more or less every race. You need to bring something new to the show weekend after weekend to ensure you stay in the game, but usually these development pigeon steps are about dotting the i's and crossing the t's to optimise an existing package.

It's very important that any significant update either to the chassis or engine package is big enough for the drivers to get something from it. If they can feel it, they will get on board and find that extra tenth in themselves. Austria is a very good example of this.

Looking further down the grid, Toro Rosso brought a new front wing endplate lower foot detail, and while CFD and/or the windtunnel said it looked positive it didn't seem to give the drivers much to write home about. Pierre Gasly mentioned that it wasn't a negative at least, but the team still needed to gather more data.

It was the same with the Renault engine's 'party mode'. Neither Nico Hulkenberg nor Carlos Sainz Jr could feel any real difference. While I would have expected such comments from Red Bull drivers, the fact the works Renault drivers were willing to say this publicly seemed a little strange to me.

This shows the drivers need a reasonable step in each development package to get a positive feeling, otherwise they lose a bit of faith in what the team is up to. Then the danger is they lose the sharp edge that's so vitally important when it comes to getting the best out of the package.

That's what Mercedes has done so well over the last two races. At Paul Ricard, both drivers were positive about the engine improvement.

Yes, it was delayed by a race but this was because of the reliability work requiring many, many hours of dyno testing and mapping to get it right. This shows how progressive the Mercedes group at Brixworth working under Andy Cowell is - hang back until you are 100% positive it's a step forward.

At the Red Bull Ring, it was the turn of the Mercedes chassis team to introduce its package. Lewis Hamilton said before practice that he hoped it would strike fear into the opposition, and on face value it did just that.

Chassis developments are that little bit more difficult to get the best from. You can do all your simulation and set-up work before running, but some things just won't rear their ugly head until you actually run on the track.

Then, you need to have all the information and back at base simulation work going on in parallel to get the best from it. That certainly was what Mercedes was able to do in Austria.

Drivers need a reasonable step in each development package to get a positive feeling, otherwise they lose a bit of faith

The package of sidepod and rear wing endplate developments are a little surprising as they are influenced by what other teams are running. The sidepods follow the Ferrari concept route, with the radiator inlets being higher to allow more room for the undercut in the side pod.

The rear wing endplates are a McLaren concept, effectively creating some extra vertical turning vanes.

However you go about it, these cars are a bit like a jigsaw. It's the sum of the parts that all add up to give the end result and no one component is more important than any other. So the research Mercedes will have had to do to optimise these components and fit them into how the rest of its car works will have been incredibly time consuming.

Along the way, I'm pretty sure Mercedes will have found a few other things that can be improved in the near future, so I don't think we have yet seen the maximum from this package.

In the end it all came to nothing for Mercedes in Austria with two very uncharacteristic reliability problems meaning nil points.

I'm pretty sure the developments Mercedes introduced had nothing to do with its reliability problems. But you need to be careful where you focus your attention. Small detail changes on where a pipe or a wire runs can have an unexpected knock on effect on reliability.

More disappointingly for Mercedes, it meant Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel have taken over the points lead in both the drivers' and constructors' championships. Heading into race 10 of a 21-race season, it couldn't really be closer and let's hope it continues that way.

The big question is always did a team move forward or did the others just have a bad weekend? Well, I think the following numbers show that it was probably just a little of both.

The first column shows the average performance of each team over the first eight races and the second column is the performance in Austria. It is expressed as a percentage with the pacesetter each weekend at 100%. The third column is the difference in performance between the pre-Austria average and this weekend.

It is only from one weekend's data, but the trend shows that Mercedes, compared to main opposition Ferrari and Red Bull, has taken a step in the right direction. And given Mercedes locked out the front row and was running first and second until things started to go wrong, pace didn't seem to be a problem.

The Haas team has also given the midfield something to think about even though it didn't introduce anything new of significance. It just got it right over a full weekend.

So from all that, what does the future hold?

I'm pretty sure Ferrari or Red Bull won't take this increase in Mercedes pace lying down and there will be a lot of head scratching going on to try to find a way for them to catch up again. We're not far off the middle of the season and the summer break and it is always important to head into that time of the season on a positive note.

You need to be careful where you focus your attention. Small detail changes can have an unexpected knock on effect on reliability

The race result also shows that out-and-out speed is not the only thing. Red Bull, which improved the least, went on to win the race - getting to that chequered flag first is where the big points are. And while fortune played a part in Max Verstappen beating Mercedes, he beat the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen in a straight fight.

Tyre troubles

Pirelli took the soft, supersoft and ultrasoft tyres to the Red Bull Ring, but I'm not convinced there was any real difference in the three compounds beyond the colour of the sidewall.

Overall, there was more or less no time difference between them and once again it allowed the faster teams to run in Q2 with the best race tyre and still have no problems making it into the top 10.

These are the simple areas that no one is doing anything about. It is not a major regulation change or one that it will cost more money, it is just a simple philosophy decision and the will to 'make the show more exciting'.

The fastest tyre at all circuits should be a one-lap special. This then puts the pressure on the driver to put that single lap together. What we are seeing with Pirelli's selection is that the drivers can do multiple laps, and don't pay the price for their mistakes.

In the Austrian GP, rear tyre blistering added to the excitement. Will it or won't it last? It also challenged the drivers' abilities to drive and protect the tyres that were blistered.

I know some will say that's not racing, but it has been that way for as long as I have been involved in F1.

I remember Austria way back in 1973 when the circuit was a real driver's challenge. Carlos Reutemann in the Brabham, which I worked for then, was leading the race when his left front tyre blistered.

None of the drivers are flat out for the whole race distance. Anyone who thinks that is misguided. When you have a tyre blistering problem you have to adjust where you protect your tyres and where you push more. Verstappen did that a lot better than some others.

We need more risk with the tyre choices. Just take hypersoft, supersoft and medium tyres and call them soft, medium and hard for all circuits.

Sometimes it will be spot on, other times the tyres will be critical at one end of the scale or the other but that just becomes the challenge for the team and a case of seeing which is best prepared for that challenge.

At least in Austria we could actually see the blistering tyre problems and it wasn't just drivers, engineers and commentators constantly rabbiting on about thermal degradation, which is basically nonsense to most casual viewers - who, after all, make up the majority of those watching.

It's Silverstone next and with its upgrades, I'm pretty sure Mercedes will be expecting a straightforward weekend.

But as Austria showed, all season Mercedes has been a little vulnerable when something unexpected crops up. If the car is as quick as it looks, long may that continue. That will ensure we keep having a good fight at the front of the championship.