So looking at the new Mercedes updates, we have reasons to be optimistic (as Merc fans)
1. A fair few updates added to the car, and only 1 hour to set the car up. To me that means there is much less chance they dialed the car in as well as the other teams who brought less updates. So in theory the potenital of the W12 is now higher than most of the cars in their current forms.
2. The tyre pressures are sky high (25 fronts, 23 rears) and this has historically hurt Mercedes more than RedBull. So if we go to future races an they Lower the pressures a little (hhigh here with the nature of the Silverstone circuit)
3. If Lewis had not overdone Vale, he would have ended around 0.300-0.350 ahead of Max in qualifying. Looking at the mini sectors in S3, Lewis one purple mini sector but Vale cost him big. He was 0.384 slower on that Final run than what Bottas did. You would expect Lewis to be quicker than Bottas in all sectors, so Lewis could have gone 4 tenths quicker so a 1.25.8xx was looking likely which would have put him well ahead of Max by the 0.350 gap I mentioned above.
4. Mercedes have been stronger in the races rather than qualifying this season, so if this trend continues we could be looking at at least a 0.500 a lap advantage which is huge!
So for now, we should remain caution and to not get ahead of ourselves, but there is good reason to be optimistic. If on Sunday Lewis drives away from Max by around 0.500 a lap, then Toto's quote in Austria about beating RedBull by 30 seconds, won't be far wrong