Mercedes faced fresh questions at the Singapore Grand Prix after George Russell’s old car package outperformed Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s upgraded version in sprint qualifying. Russell secured second place on the grid, while Antonelli struggled to seventh, a result that left the team uncertain about the effectiveness of their recent update.
The decision to run different specifications on their cars was made after a difficult weekend in Malaysia. Mercedes split their setup for the Singapore GP, running Antonelli on the new package and Russell on the old, aiming to gather more data under race conditions. Instead of clarifying matters, the outcome deepened the mystery.
Russell acknowledged that the old package was working well but stopped short of dismissing the upgrade. “We can definitely confirm the old one is not bad, let’s see what tomorrow brings with Kimi on the upgrade,” he said. “As a team, there’s still nothing telling us that it isn’t working, but it’s more driven by the stopwatch and, yeah, the stopwatch has not been great for the upgrade yet.”
The Briton reflected on the competitive performance throughout the day, pointing to the fastest times in the opening practice sessions and his P2 finish in qualifying. “I think we’ve seen competitive all day to be honest from the first laps in FP1,” Russell said. “We obviously topped the timesheets there. When Lewis, Max was fast, and he went on a slightly different strategy to us in Q3 just doing one lap. Who knows what was best, but pretty satisfied with the P2.”
Antonelli, meanwhile, described a difficult run with the new package. He noted the unpredictability of the car and his struggle to find grip and rhythm on the Singapore circuit. “It’s really the car is very difficult, very unpredictable and very difficult to put a lap together,” the Italian said. “It’s a shame because I was coming with high hopes, but so far, it’s been very difficult.”
Antonelli admitted he did not expect to find the seven-tenths deficit needed to catch up in the main qualifying session. “I don’t really see where we can find seven tenths, but you never know,” he added. “Maybe tonight, with Bono, the engineer, we’re going to find something in the car. And for sure, I’m going to try to improve a little bit the driving and then let’s see, we’ll see tomorrow where we end up.”
Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin acknowledged the puzzle facing the team after Friday’s split package approach on a circuit that is notoriously tricky to set up. “It is not the easiest track to do that at, or have the Sprint format, as it often takes a bit of time to get the car set-up dialled in,” Shovlin said. “We’ve seen that today as whilst we’re pleased to see George on the front row, it has left us with a bit of head scratching to do to understand why the update is not bringing the performance step we expect.”
Shovlin elaborated on the specific issues Antonelli was facing, citing a lack of confidence in braking and corner entry that affected the driver’s ability to push for a fast lap. “Neither car had a great balance, although Kimi was lacking more confidence on the braking and entry phase and that’s what you need to attack a qualifying lap here,” he said. “We’ll keep working to understand why that’s the case. We’ve got plenty of data around us to try and make some progress and, hopefully, we’ll be able to get Kimi’s car in a better place for main qualifying tomorrow.”
As the team analyses the data overnight, it remains unclear whether the upgrade will deliver the gains Mercedes were hoping for. Russell’s performance with the older package contrasts sharply with Antonelli’s struggles, leaving the Silver Arrows searching for answers ahead of Sunday’s race.
According to Yahoo Sports.