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.

The successful programme “City Culture at the Mercedes-Benz Museum” is back: from 13 July to 13 August, cultural practitioners from Stuttgart and the region will present their programmes on the open-air stage for the third time since the premiere in 2021. The Museum acts as the tried and tested host for the cultural programme across various genres and themes and provides the open-air stage as a unique summer location.

This summer, the programme again offers a colourful mix from theatre to poetry slam, and from club evenings with hip-hop and electronic music to classical sounds and cabaret. The Mercedes-Benz Museum is also hosting a concert: on 9 August, the German-Australian duo Amistat will be playing, with Hollie Col and Dane Drewis as support.

The current event overview is available on the website www.mercedes-benz.com/stadtkultur. There is also a link to the ticketing system of the respective organisers for each entry.

Current programme and tickets (subject to change)

    13 July 2023, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Klaus Birk and Andreas Müller: “HomeLandZack! A Badener and a Swabian perform.” Cabaret and articulate comedy all about this very special relationship in the state (in German).
    14 July 2023, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Good Live Comedy Jam”. Stand-up comedy with Mariano Vivenzio and Serdar Karibik, among others (in German). Moderated by Immo.Tommy and musically supported by DJ Cusher.
    15 July 2023, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Old School Vibes”. The “Old School Hip-Hop & R-’n’-B-Party” will feature artists Aik-One (Cologne), Uncle Change (Osnabrück), Chico G (Hamburg) and Bless (Cologne).
    16 July 2023, 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.: “Children for Children – Our Voice Counts!” A benefit event with a colourful programme by children, pupils from the age of four to the high school graduating class, for the Verein der Palliativ-Care-Teams im Kreis Böblingen e. V. (an association of palliative care teams in the District of Böblingen) for the benefit of critically ill children.
    16 July 2023, 6 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.: “Kopfkino – Open Air Vol. 9”. The evening promises a perfect mix of poetry, comedy and live music with newcomers, renowned artists and local heroes as well as host Khalid Bounouar (in German).
    20 July 2023, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Summer Night Concert”. The University Orchestra, PEP Band and SING_UNI of the Esslingen University of Applied Sciences offer an evening of film music from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to Disney classics.
    21 July 2023, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Best of Poetry Slam”. A summit meeting of the German-speaking poetry slam scene, including German-speaking poetry slam champion Florian Wintels (Osnabrück) and German-speaking U20 (under 20) champion Paulina Behrendt (Hamburg).
    22 July 2023, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Vibrancy Open Air”. The techno event with stars of the scene features Djane Magit Cacoon and Marino Canal, among others. The regional newcomer Snc. is already known from stages in southern Germany.
    23 July 2023, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Dominik Eulberg: “Open Air Biodiversity Show”. With his stage concept, DJ and conservationist Dominik Eulberg builds bridges between music and knowledge transfer to raise awareness of the beauty and diversity of nature.
    27 July 2023, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Major League DJz”. Guest performance by the successful South African DJ duo, who thrill audiences from Bali to Coachella to London.
    28 July 2023, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Best of Erotic Slam”. The seductive word games on the open-air stage form a “best of” edition of the successful Stuttgart erotic slam (in German).
    29 July 2023, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Techno Open Air of the Stuttgart label NewKids Records with Anxhela, Tham, Mad Maex, Source Code.
    30 July 2023, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.: “Comedy 72 – Open Air”. The evening with well-known stand-up comedians and comedy newcomers from all over Germany offers a varied programme (in German), hosted by Andi Mohr.
    3 August 2023, 7.30 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Stuttgart Comedy Clash Open Air. Seven top-class comedians from all over Germany compete for the favour of the audience (in German). Salim Samatou and Marvin Endres will be hosting.
    5 and 6 August 2023, 8.30 p.m. to 10 p.m. each day: “Candlelight Open Air at the Mercedes-Benz Museum: Rock Classics”. A classical sextet led by Stuttgart violinist Petra-Manon Hirzel plays great rock classics outdoors by soft candlelight.
    9 August 2023, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Amistat: “Colour in Life Tour”. The duo will be guests at the Mercedes-Benz Museum with their programme, which will be released in March 2023. The German-Australian musicians are accompanied by Australian singer and songwriter Hollie Col and musical multi-talent Dane Drewis.
    12 August 2023, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Hip-hop concert with the band Genetikk.
    13 August 2023, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Saturdays, Malevo & Bagatelle present SUMMER OPEN AIR. Hip Hop, Afrobeats, Urban Sounds and 90ies by Korex, Namaste, Capryy & AKZ.

Boston (USA) / Leinfelden-Echterdingen (Germany) – After its first full year as an independent listed company, Daimler Truck Holding AG (Daimler Truck) hosts its Capital Market Day 2023 in Boston (Massachusetts, USA). The main topics are the guidance increase for 2023, the confirmation of 2025 ambitions, an enhanced capital allocation policy, and the path towards 2030, transforming the Company for sustainable growth.

"Daimler Truck is doing very well. We are increasing our guidance for 2023. We are firmly on track to deliver on our 2025 ambitions. And we are ready to take Daimler Truck to the next level by 2030 – aiming for above 12% adjusted return on sales for the Industrial Business in sunny conditions. We are initiating a share buyback program of up to two billion euros over a period of up to two years to make sure our shareholders fully benefit from our successful development. Our flexible technology strategy enables us not only to navigate the historic transformation of our industry, but to capture all opportunities associated with it. In short: Daimler Truck is transforming for sustainable growth – to the benefit of our employees, our customers and our shareholders,” says Martin Daum, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck.

Strong momentum and increase of guidance for 2023 to 8.5-10% adjusted ROS

After a strong first quarter in 2023 and an increase in unit sales in Q2, Daimler Truck continues to see a positive momentum for the remaining financial year. In the second quarter of 2023, worldwide unit sales of the Group increased by 9.0% versus the prior year quarter, selling in total 131,888 units (Q2/22: 120,961). All segments contributed positively to this year-over-year increase: Trucks North America +14.7% with 50,618 units (Q2/22: 44,124), Mercedes-Benz +1.1% with 39,236 units (Q2/22: 38,812), Trucks Asia +9.2% with 40,097 units (Q2/22: 36,704) and Daimler Buses +21.8% with 6,181 units (Q2/22: 5,075).

These developments result in an increased Group revenue guidance between €56 billion and €58 billion (previously: €55 billion – €57 billion).

The adjusted ROS guidance for the Industrial Business for the financial year 2023 increases to a range of 8.5-10% (previously: 7.5-9%). The Group also raises its outlook for each industrial segment. The adjusted ROS guidance for Trucks North America is lifted to the range of 11-13% (previously: 10-12%). For Mercedes-Benz, the Group now expects an adjusted ROS between 8-10% (previously: 7-9%). Trucks Asia is now expected to reach an adjusted ROS between 4-6% (previously: 3-5%). For Daimler Buses the adjusted ROS target corridor is raised to between 3-5% (previously: 2-4%). The main drivers are stronger core markets accompanied by an improving supply chain situation, robust pricing and a strong development of the services business.

The guidance for the Group’s investment and R&D costs is lifted to “slight increase” (previously “on prior-year level”), however, free cash flow for the Industrial Business is now expected to “increase significantly” (previously: “slight increase”), proving again Daimler Truck’s high cash conversion.

On track to deliver on 2025 ambition of above 10% adjusted ROS

Next to a positive start into the financial year 2023, the Group continues to stay focused on self-help measures, notably the reduction of fixed costs and capital spent as well as the increase of service revenues. By this, Daimler Truck has already improved its resilience and aims to further reduce the impact of cyclical downturns on future results. Overall, Daimler Truck is on track to achieve the above 10% adjusted return on sales ambition by 2025 for the Industrial Business in favorable conditions.

Given the excellent operating business development and strong cash flow generation, Daimler Truck also updated its capital allocation policy to reduce the impact of industrial cycles on dividend payments. To maintain a more stable dividend level even in tougher market environments, the future dividend payout range will amount to 40-60%. In addition, Daimler Truck announced to initiate a share buyback program with a value of up to €2 billion over approximately up to 24 months, expected to start after the Q2 disclosure (August 1st).

Leverage financial strength for 2030 ambition of above 12% adjusted ROS

“Looking beyond 2025, we see multiple growth opportunities in our industry and we are fully equipped to exploit these opportunities. This should translate into a 40-60% increase in revenues between 2025 and 2030 and an above 12% adjusted return on sales for the Industrial Business in sunny conditions. At the same time, we will be relentlessly focused on cost discipline and smart capital allocation,” says Jochen Goetz, Member of the Board of Management and CFO of Daimler Truck.

The main drivers for leveraging Daimler Truck’s financial strength towards 2030 are stringent allocation of capital through our return on capital steering model and the associated active portfolio management, service revenue growth, autonomous driving and zero emission vehicles (ZEV).

Active portfolio management and the stronger focus on return on capital steering approach support Daimler Truck to pivot towards the high-margin heavy-duty segment. The recently announced Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of the intended merger of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corporation (FUSO) and Hino Motors is a prime example of the active portfolio management strategy. Service revenue growth is expected to be driven by parts & services, ZEV ecosystems and digital solutions. Daimler Truck will also make use of the expected highly scalable and highly profitable market opportunity of autonomous driving, expecting to generate over €3 billion revenues and over €1 billion of EBIT with autonomous driving in 2030. ZEV products are expected to have a higher revenue per unit and to be still favorable from a total cost of ownership perspective for customers. That is obviously highly dependent on energy prices and varies from segment to segment and region to region.

Fundamental to Daimler Truck’s financial ambitions is a technology strategy that focuses on highly differentiating products and scalable technologies which are developed once and deployed multiple times.

Technology Strategy: Creating value for customers and scale for Daimler Truck

Daimler Truck sets itself the clear ambition to lead the transformation towards sustainable transportation. Therefore, the company’s focus lies on two technology fields that provide the highest differentiation for customers and the largest economies of scale. Power to drive, comprising the propulsion system, and intelligence to drive, focusing on electronics and software.

For power to drive, Daimler Truck aims to continuously offer best total cost of ownership for its customers regardless of the energy source, be it diesel, battery or hydrogen. For intelligence to drive, Daimler Truck aims to differentiate with software features, which are rolled out rapidly, with high quality and tailor-made for customer use cases. Both technology fields are designed as global platforms with the goal of maximum commonality to scale them across the company’s portfolio – across all brands and regions. The platforms also allow to leverage on scales even beyond Daimler Truck.

„Technology plays a key role at Daimler Truck, as it is a crucial lever to increase shareholder value by creating both value for our customers and scale for us. This has always been essential, and even more so in times of transformation,” says Andreas Gorbach, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck, responsible for Truck Technology.

Decarbonizing with battery and hydrogen based solutions

The speed of decarbonization in trucking is highly driven by the availability of infrastructure and competitive cost of green energy. Thus, the transformation requires a transition phase in which the diesel engine still plays a central role. In the case of medium-duty engines, Daimler Truck is concentrating on a non-captive procurement approach of such units in view of the declining volume of diesel-powered vehicles. Though in the case of the own platform for heavy-duty engines, the Group wants to remain competitive through further scaling, even beyond Daimler Truck.

For a zero-emission future, the company is convinced that only the combination of battery-electric and hydrogen-powered propulsion systems will enable the customers to solve their transportation tasks sustainably and economically.

When it comes to battery technology, Daimler Truck is using a fast-to-market approach and already has a broad vehicle offering, followed by a dedicated, purpose-built truck platform for high-volume production as battery-electric vehicle (BEV) penetration increases. For hydrogen, Daimler Truck is aiming to enter series production of first fuel cell powered vehicles within the second half of this decade, powered by the aggregates from cellcentric, its joint venture with the Volvo Group. As a potential complementary low-carbon technology for specific customer use cases with e.g. high power demand, Daimler Truck is considering the hydrogen combustion engine. If the corresponding regulatory framework conditions are set, the Company can build upon existing diesel engine platforms and provide this technology quickly.

Differentiation through digitalization

Starting already in 2024, Daimler Truck plans to roll out numerous next level software features such as further improved active safety functionalities, next level connectivity for fleet owner data access, predictive maintenance, and advanced over-the-air-updates. All these features are enabled by a more powerful computer architecture. In a next step, Daimler Truck targets to further decouple software and hardware development cycles, enabling product and business improvements that can be developed in fast agile cycles, by Daimler Truck or third parties, and deployed over-the-air.

Daimler Truck’s technology-openness enables to create value for all customer use cases. Stringent commonality, portfolio optimization and partnerships create the scale for profitability.