Lewis Hamilton

The conditions were very tricky out there and we’re all trying our best. I think the contact with Perez was a racing incident. He went wide and was slow through turn 14 and I got a great exit – I was more than half-a-car alongside him and we ended up just coming together. Naturally it wasn’t intentional, but I got a penalty for it. Ultimately, it doesn’t make a huge difference. The difference between fourth and seventh in a Sprint where you don’t get a lot of points means it’s not punishing.

The positives are that our pace has been good. Today in the Sprint Shootout, we would have been fighting for the front-row without the issues on our final lap. We would have been right up there battling with Max, but it wasn’t meant to be. We now start third tomorrow and I hope I’ll be able to fight with the Ferraris and Perez.
George Russell

I think P8 was the maximum we could achieve from a shortened Sprint today. The car was really quick; I think we were probably the second fastest out there behind Max. Unfortunately after a bad qualifying session this is all you can really get. It also wasn’t easy out there in those conditions. It was my decision to pit one lap after the safety car had come in and that was perhaps not the correct one. We came out P12 after the pit stop and got back to P8. To recover those positions in such a short race is positive. With two more laps, we could have possibly got up to P5, but it is what it is, and I’m relatively satisfied.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

The car was good today. I would rather have a quick car that is doing good things and have a less optimal position in the Sprint, than benefitting from other’s misfortunes and being lucky. Given everything that happened today that we didn’t optimise, I’m OK with how our race played out.

Both Lewis and George had great pace; George overtook several cars and was closing on Norris who was much further ahead, so he had a good recovery. The contact between Lewis and Perez I saw as a racing incident more than penalty worthy. They were side-by-side and we want to see people racing. Nevertheless, that was the decision, and we now move on to the Grand Prix tomorrow. If we take similar pace into the race, we will be in a good position to fight for a decent result.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Both drivers drove a good race today. We’d have liked a few more laps to attack as the car was working well. Lewis’ penalty is frustrating, but the big points are tomorrow and if the car has the pace it had today, we should be on for a strong result.

George did a really good job to get into the points. It wasn’t easy to overtake as the DRS was disabled but he was making steady progress through the field and had good pace. We still don’t have any proper dry running so it’s hard to know where everyone will be on pace; we can expect Max to be difficult to beat even with his penalty, but everything else is up for grabs.

With digitalisation and the increasing use of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems, every job profile at Mercedes-Benz is changing. As part of the Turn2Learn qualification initiative, Mercedes-Benz is investing more than €2 billion in the qualification of its global workforce until 2030. The Turn2Learn initiative focuses specifically on digitalisation and AI. For example, in the two pilot programmes D.SHIFT and Data Worker, more than 600 employees from production, production-related areas and administration are currently undergoing dedicated qualification to become data and AI specialists. The first graduates will receive their certificates in the next few days. Due to the strong employee interest in this area, Mercedes-Benz is now expanding these programmes.

"To successfully shape the company's transformation, we don’t just need to have the right digital tools and generative AI applications in place within the company. Of far greater importance is a team that both embraces change and constantly expands its digital skills. The huge interest in courses offered by our Turn2Learn qualification initiative proves that we’ve got exactly this kind of team at Mercedes-Benz. To successfully master the process of change, courage and commitment are necessary. We can see both of these attributes demonstrated by the colleagues who are currently taking part in the D.SHIFT and Data Worker programmes as they continue to invest a great deal of time and energy in retraining and further education. As the world of work continues its massive transformation, lifelong learning will remain the key to success – for us as a company as well as for our employees."
Sabine Kohleisen, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG responsible for Human Resources, and Director of Labour Relations

"Electrification, digitalisation and rapid developments in artificial intelligence are fundamentally changing the working environment. That goes for production, too. Which is why we urgently need more data specialists who are familiar with the production environment and furthermore have a strong grasp of digital tools and their interfaces. And this is exactly where D.SHIFT, the qualification programme for our production employees, comes in. It allows us to provide targeted support to digitally savvy people who have a high willingness to learn and change, and who are also familiar with our production processes.
Following the success of D.SHIFT in Berlin and Untertürkheim, we plan to expand this unique initiative in the coming months."
Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Production & Supply Chain Management

"Lifelong learning isn’t something new – but the speed at which technologies and the world of work are changing is. This is why ongoing training and education are a fundamental cornerstone for employment, the future viability of the company as well as for the personal development of each individual. As the works council, it’s our aim to ensure that the transformation of our company is fair, socially responsible and just. To accomplish this, it’s crucial to involve employees in the process. As the General Works Council, we have had a longstanding commitment to qualification training. It is right and proper that the company invests accordingly and sets the course for the effective and continuous qualification. But it also takes a strong will and courage on everyone’s part. I am impressed by the enthusiasm and motivation with which our colleagues have completed their training."
Ergun Lümali, Chairman of the General Works Council of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
Turn2Learn as a systematic continuation of our approach to employee qualification

Under the roof of the Turn2Learn qualification initiative, Mercedes-Benz offers its employees a comprehensive range of opportunities to learn in a self-determined and flexible manner for their current job or in preparation for their future dream job.

These range from short courses to learning paths and academic degrees. All qualification offered is aligned with the Group’s strategic goals, for example with qualification available in areas including "data science for beginners"; "cloud solution architect"; "hybrid working"; "developing learning routines" and "project management", through to sustainability topics. The external learning platforms introduced last year are also being widely used: With around 100,000 licences made available companywide for various external learning platforms, learning opportunities have already been accessed more than one million times since the launch.

Investments are being made in the development of digital skills in all areas of the company. In 2022, there were around 120,000 participations in training courses that were related to digitalisation, such as software, coding and IT at Mercedes-Benz Group AG worldwide. In addition, there were more than 77,000 participations in training courses on topics relating to electric mobility at our MB Tech Academies in Germany. Since the beginning of this year, Mercedes-Benz employees worldwide have invested a total of more than 900,000 hours in professional and personal training.
D.SHIFT: Training of talented employees from production for defined target positions in the digital job environment

To actively promote the digital transformation in production, the in-service training programme, D.SHIFT, was launched at the Berlin site in 2021. Employees from production who are interested in data and AI are selected as part of a so-called "Digital Challenge" and retrained as data specialists. Throughout the programme, these employees receive intensive support and guidance and additionally get hands-on work experience with specific practical projects and job shadowing. At the end of the programme, they move into their target positions that were defined and set at the beginning.

After eleven employees successfully completed their retraining in Berlin as part of the pilot project, the D.SHIFT programme was extended to the powertrain site in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim. There, too, 22 Stuttgart colleagues from the area of production have now completed their retraining and moved into their previously defined target positions as data specialists at the Sindelfingen site. The training scheme enables these digital pioneers to qualify for new employment opportunities in areas such as data analysis, artificial intelligence or software programming for electric mobility.

Thanks to D.SHIFT, employees in production can expand their skills, contribute their knowledge of the production environment and align themselves with future-proof job profiles. The response has been enormous across the production site: several hundred employees have applied for the 22 spots in Untertürkheim. Thanks to the success of this programme, D.SHIFT will be further expanded in the coming months.
Data Worker: Selected learning paths for data science and artificial intelligence available to the global workforce

The digital transformation of Mercedes-Benz is being driven forward by data. The goals of a data-driven organisation can only be met if relevant data can be located, accessed, interoperated with and reused in high quality throughout the company. To ensure this in the future and enable data-driven decisions in all specialist areas of the company, there is a need for employees who are responsible for the preparation, analysis and operationalisation of data. Mercedes-Benz has therefore defined specific Data Worker profiles for strategically important data and use cases. In addition to external new hires, the company has been specifically ensuring an increase in qualified specialists through internal retraining as part of the companywide Data Worker pilot programme since 2022. Employees can choose between four special learning paths: Data Product Owner, Data Engineer, Data Analyst and Data Scientist. Depending on the learning path, the training takes between 60 and 400 hours.

"Data plays a key role in the transformation process towards becoming a digital company. Opinions become facts. This is the only way we can create first-class customer experiences and innovative solutions. Qualified specialists such as our Data Workers are the foundation for this. Their expertise makes it possible for us to fully tap the potential from data in a dynamic environment. They also show that the transformation to a data-driven organisation not only creates entirely new roles, but also promotes personal and professional development."
Jan Brecht, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Mercedes-Benz Group AG

The initial programme proved very successful. It was not only the participants who learned a great deal: the company did as well. The insights gained have been directly incorporated into the further development of the learning paths. In view of the strategic importance of digital skills, essential modules of the Data Worker learning paths can be booked by all employees. In addition, key content has also been adapted to other qualifications, and further learning paths on the topics of data and AI have also been developed.
Data and AI at Mercedes-Benz

Generative AI applications already are being employed in many areas of the company. As recently as mid-June, the company announced plans to integrate AI into the voice control system of its vehicles. By adding ChatGPT, voice control via the MBUX Voice Assistant's Hey Mercedes will become even more intuitive.  In mid-June 2023, an optional beta programme was launched for customers in the USA whose model series are equipped with the MBUX infotainment system.

Mercedes-Benz is also testing ChatGPT in production, accelerating the use of intelligent tools in the MO360 digital production ecosystem, which was first introduced in 2020. With the aim of optimising the analysis of production data, for example from quality management, ChatGPT will support production employees as a universal, voice-based interface.

Lewis Hamilton

My initial getaway wasn’t the worst I’ve ever had but it wasn’t as good as the others. I ran wide and also got done by the McLarens. After that, I didn’t have the pace to keep up with those ahead. The balance of the car didn’t feel great in the first stint, and I had a lot of understeer, to snap oversteer, and problems with through-corner balance. As the stints progressed, the car started to become more driveable, and the final stint was much better. The pace we had at the end was very strong and if we had had that throughout, we would have had a much better day.

Nevertheless, I’m going to take the positives from this weekend. It was an amazing effort from the Team to take pole position. We still have a lot of work to do to beat Red Bull in a Grand Prix, but we will keep pushing.
George Russell

P6 was beyond our expectations for today. It was definitely a good recovery. We thought we would be P11 in a typical race and P7 if we maximised everything. I’m happy with how it went. The car was really quick, and this place is one of my favourite circuits. As a Team, we usually go well here so I had a feeling we would be quick.

Of course it is disappointing as we didn’t deliver yesterday. I think we could have been right up there and if we had two cars up front, the dynamic changes completely. Nevertheless, we’ve extended the gap over P3 in the Constructors’ Championship so we will take it. There are a lot of positives to come out of this weekend and we have learned a lot. We will go again at Spa next week. 
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO

I think we had the second quickest car today, but the result doesn’t show it. If you look at the lap time profile and George’s progress, there was opportunity for more, but we didn’t monetise it. That is obviously disappointing. In the final stint, Lewis reeled in over 10 seconds to those ahead and we finished just 1.5 seconds shy of the podium. I think if we had executed our race slightly differently, we would have had that margin. We need to analyse and see what we could have done.

We were far off a pole position at the start of the year, and we’ve started to comprehend the car more. Having said that, Max looked tranquil up front and we’re not here to race for second-best. Getting to the front is the objective and of course, that was far off today.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Starting from P1 and not even making the podium is always going to be disappointing. We never believed we had the pace to beat Verstappen, but we could have been second had more gone our way. The opening lap wasn’t great for Lewis, dropping to fourth, but as the race went on our pace seemed to get better. At one point it looked like we’d be a distant fourth, but he did a good job closing Perez and Norris down in the final stint. It was frustrating that we couldn’t get on the back of them sooner.

Our expectations with George were to just make it into the points. For him to come sixth is a very good result. We were nursing engine temperatures, which cost both cars a lot of race time, as the ambient temperature was slightly higher than expected. We’ve made small gains to Ferrari and Aston Martin in the Constructors’ Championship, which is some consolation. Overall though, we leave here thinking we could have done a much better job as a Team.

Lewis Hamilton

We only used one set of the dry compound tyres today. With the ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ format we get less running, which is not ideal from a driver’s perspective. We will have more flexibility in terms of what tyres we run in FP3 tomorrow though.

The car wasn’t feeling great today, but we will be working on the set-up overnight and hopefully make some improvements for tomorrow. We typically start off lacking a little pace. Through the work we do and changes we make, we typically tend to find some more speed as we progress into the weekend. I’m hopeful that tomorrow the car will feel better.
George Russell

We were on a very different programme to everyone else today, only using one set of the Medium compound tyre throughout. For FP2, that meant we were running a used Medium tyre, so the lap times don’t give a true representation of our pace. I’m sure tomorrow we will be better. We’re just focused on trying to improve and we know we tend to improve as the weekend progress, which is the right way around.

We learned a few interesting things even in that one dry session. We’re struggling with a bit of overall grip and the tyres didn’t feel like they were in the right window on both low fuel and high fuel. We need to understand why that was, but these are difficult things to assess during a session. We will work on that overnight; it wasn’t our best day for sure but that’s not the first time we’ve said that this year. Saturday and Sunday tend to be better so I’m looking forward to the weekend.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

FP1 was not a great deal of use due to the timing of the red flag and then the arrival of the rain. We carried a lightly used set of Medium tyres into the second session; we did some work on lower fuel levels but focused more on the long run. Most teams took a second set of tyres today, something we chose not to do. That’s the main reason we don’t feature higher up on the time sheets. The benefit will come in the learning for qualifying, where we have two new sets in FP3.

There’s plenty of work to do with the car balance on both the single lap and long run, which is useful as the field is looking very tight. We also have the challenge of different compounds in each segment of qualifying, meaning the out laps need to be adjusted continuously. We will review all the data tonight and see what we can do tomorrow.

Toto Talks Hungary

We head to Hungary looking forward to tackling the double-header before the summer shutdown. It has been an up-and-down first half of the year, but we can take several positives.

At Silverstone, we outscored our closest competitors. We executed well on race day. We were able to race to the podium and extend our P2 advantage in the championship. However, the order is fluctuating almost every weekend. We need to keep adding performance if we are to close the gap to the front and fight for victories.

Several teams have made big gains recently. This has brought some into the fight with us, especially McLaren. It has been impressive and gives us encouragement that we can also continue to find gains. We relish that challenge and will bring our own steps in due course.

The Hungaroring is a circuit that is quite different in nature to Silverstone. It will be interesting to explore how our latest upgrades perform in the long-radius, slow-speed corners. We have good memories from Hungary last year, with George’s first pole position in F1 and a double podium for the Team. This race also marks a decade since Lewis’ first win with us, so it’s a circuit full of good memories.

Hopefully we can have another strong showing this time out. We want to build on the positive momentum from Silverstone and take the fight to our rivals.
Fact File: Hungarian Grand Prix

    This weekend sees the first ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ weekend trial, which you can read more about here.
    The Hungarian Grand Prix weekend tends to be one of the hottest of the year, with an average air temperature of 25°C and a maximum of 33°C.
    Correspondingly, track temperatures tend to also be high with an average of 36°C rising to a maximum of just over 50°C.
    The amount of braking activity, with six events across the lap, coupled with the high ambient temperatures and the absence of long straights make the circuit exceptionally taxing on the brakes.
    The low average speed at the Hungaroring also limits airflow, which makes it even more of a challenge to cool the brakes.
    The circuit features 14 corners, six to the left and eight to the right. Many of these follow one after another in quick succession, meaning a well-balanced car that can handle directional changes is important for lap time.
    The Hungaroring has one of the lowest top speeds of the season at just over 310 km/h. That is perhaps no surprise given the cars spend just over 10 seconds on a straight over the course of a fast lap, with the remaining time spent cornering.
    Those track characteristics are also reflected in the full throttle percentage, which is just 60% and one of the lowest figures we see across the year.
    Despite a relatively short start/finish straight, the distance from pole position to the braking zone for Turn 1 measures 444 metres, on the longer side compared to other venues we visit.
    Given the prevalence of slower corners, good traction is important here. That is why this circuit puts the rear tyres under a lot of stress.
    Last year saw George take his maiden F1 pole position, his lap time of 1:17.377 putting him on pole position for the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix. The Team followed that up with a double podium in the race with Lewis taking second, with George third.
    Lewis is the most successful driver in Hungarian Grand Prix history with a tally of eight victories. Next on the list is Michael Schumacher with four wins to his name.