Mercedes "not much quicker" on soft tyre in Australian GP practice

George Russell felt confident with his Mercedes W16 on the harder compounds during practice for Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix, but thought the car was struggling to get more out of the softs during the qualifying simulations.

Russell placed 10th overall in the FP2 timesheets, although displayed good levels of projected race pace during the end-of-session long runs, as he felt more comfortable with the C3 and C4 tyres that Pirelli brought to Albert Park.

The Briton was ultimately 0.843s down on Charles Leclerc’s headline lap from FP2, notably behind the Racing Bulls duo and Lance Stroll, as the W16 looked slightly wayward on the C5.

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Russell reckoned that his team could find a smoking gun during the post-session debrief, but noted that the squad was struggling to find the one-lap performance step between soft and medium tyres.

“It was a really up and down day because every time we had the medium or the hard tyre on, we were right in the top two of the time sheets and every lap felt good, felt confident,” Russell said.

“And then we put the soft on, we didn’t go much quicker. Clearly there is a bit of pace in the car and it’s just getting the most out of the tyre, so we need to understand why that is. Let’s see what we can achieve overnight.

“I mean, if the session stopped off with a hard tyre and if the session stopped after the medium tyre and FP1, I’d have said definitely we’re there or thereabouts. But obviously you don’t qualify under the hard or the medium tyre, you qualify on the soft tyre, and we don’t seem so competitive on that one.

“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 16th fastest in the FP2 order, with a handful of wide moments on his fastest lap, and the young Italian put that down to Mercedes struggling to find the window with the C5 compound.

He added that his own inexperience with the tyre meant that he was struggling to get the right temperatures into the red-walled Pirellis before embarking on his own flying lap attempts, but he was nonetheless positive about his first F1 practice session as a fully minted Mercedes driver.

“It was I think quite a positive day; there’s some work to do on single lap, just getting the tyres in the right window, but overall I felt pretty good,” Antonelli reviewed.

“I did a little mistake at the end, but overall I think I’m getting more and more confidence up, and I think the long run was quite positive today.

“The C5 is a compound I’ve never really used, so definitely I’m learning it; especially the warm-up is quite tricky, but we’ve got some good data ahead of tomorrow.”