Mercedes “not much faster” on soft tire in the Australian GP practice

With his Mercedes W16, George Russell was confident about the tougher connections during the training for the Australian Grand Prix of Formula 1, but thought that the car had difficulty getting out of softs during the qualification simulations.

Russell took the 10th overall in the FP2 timbers, although he showed a good degree of planned pace during the long runs at the end of the session because he felt more comfortable with the C3 and C4 tires that Pirelli had brought to Albert Park.

The Briton was ultimately 0.843S on Charles Leclerc’s headlines from FP2, especially behind the Racing Bulls Duo and the Lance walk, since the W16 on the C5 looked somewhat obvious.

Russell stated that his team could find a smoking weapon during the after-meeting after the meeting, but noticed that the squad had difficulty finding the one-round performance step between soft and medium tires.

“It was really up and from day, because every time we had the medium or the hard tires, we were in the first two Time sheets and every round felt good, felt confident,” said Russell.

“And then we put on the soft, we didn’t go much faster. Obviously there is a bit of speed in the car and it only takes the best out of the tire, so we have to understand why this is. Let’s see what we can achieve overnight.

“I mean when the session stopped with a hard tire and the session after the middle tire and FP1 stopped, I would definitely have said that we are there or so. But obviously they do not qualify under the hard or the middle tire, they qualify for the soft tire and we do not seem to make ourselves so competitive.

“I’m sure we can find some improvements tonight.”

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli was only the 16th fastest in FP2 Order with a handful of wide moments on his fastest round, and the young Italian made Mercedes, who tried to find the window with the C5 site.

He added that his own inexperience with the tire meant that he was fighting to bring the right temperatures into the red-walled pirellis before he made his own flying round attempts, but he was still positive about his first F1 training session as a fully embossed Mercedes driver.

“It was a fairly positive day, there are some work on the individual lap to only bring the tires into the right window, but overall I felt pretty good,” checked Antonelli.

“In the end I made a small mistake, but overall I think I will get more and more confidence, and I think the long -term was pretty positive today.

“The C5 is a connection that I have never really used, so I definitely learn it. Warmding is particularly difficult, but we have some good data before tomorrow.”

Photos of Australian GP – free practice