After their new 2017 driver Valtteri Bottas, took victory for the Mercedes Formula One team ten days ago, the team celebrated into the night, however, their thoughts were not very far from the next round on the 2017 calendar, the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Spanish Grand Prix is home to the team's worst performance of 2016 when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg came together and took each other out of contention.

Confident that those days are far behind them, the focus is now on increasing performance so that both drivers can have a race winning car beneath them around the Barcelona Circuit on Sunday afternoon.

Russia showed the Brackley based squad don't have all the answers and that Ferrari is definitely a force to be reckoned with this year, so the team is hoping to coming back stronger this weekend and return to their consistent winning ways, as team boss Toto Wolff explains…

"I always enjoy going to Russia but it was a tricky weekend for us. On Friday we lacked performance but the engineers made the right decisions that evening and we made a good step on Saturday and Sunday. The prevailing feeling is that there is lots of homework to do to come back stronger with a car that can perform on a consistent level every weekend. I have the feeling that we are moving in the right direction but we need 24/7 shifts to achieve our ultimate targets.”

Wolff added that they are very p-leased that Valtteri stepped up and claimed his first win for the team and himself, in some very tough circumstances…

"We expected Valtteri to develop through every single race and step up his performance and he's shown that. He's coped extremely well with his calm approach to setbacks. And he hasn't been carried away with success. It came early in Bahrain with the pole position and then he had a setback in the race. He replied with an exceptional performance in Sochi, in just his fourth Grand Prix for Mercedes, and showed that he's on the right path.”

He also acknowledged how hard things were for Lewis throughout the course of the entire weekend…

"On the flip side, Lewis had a difficult weekend in both qualifying and the race. We have spent our time since then unpicking what happened to understand why we couldn't get the car in the right window so he could feel comfortable with it - there are no magic bullets to understanding that, just a lot of hard work and attention to detail. We must give him the tools he needs to do the job in the next races and that will be a big focus for us.”

As for the next round in Spain, they dodn't expect to have things go all their own way…

"Barcelona will be interesting as our pre-season was not spectacular in Spain. It's a very different track to Sochi and we'll be running with harder tyres. We are taking this season one race at a time. If we deliver the best possible work from Friday onwards, then we'll be ready to win and fight with Ferrari.”

Looking back to a year ago when Lewis and Nico collided and took both cars out of race winning contention, Wolff is confident the battle between his two drivers this season is nowhere near the same point…

"This inter-team battle is a totally different situation that what we have seen over the last three years. You simply need to adapt to the challenge and that's what we are doing, playing the hunter as well as being the hunted. At the moment there are two top teams fighting for both championships and I expect Red Bull will also eventually join the club. The small margins we are seeing this season are demonstrated by the closeness at the top of the Drivers' championship and even more so by the one point advantage we have in the Constructors'. This fight will continue on to the end of the season and we will be prepared for that battle."