Mercedes F1 drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli have admitted concern over the pace of the W16 at the Australian GP.
Mercedes saw their hopes for a good result in Australia take a hit during both Free Practice sessions at Albert Park.
The W16 initially ran inside the top ten during the second session, but both drivers rapidly dropped down the competitive order.
As the top teams switched to soft tyres for the qualifying simulations, the W16’s pace did not improve as expected.
Russell eventually finished in P10 at the chequered flag, almost a full second behind Charles Leclerc’s pace setting Ferrari.
George Russell: ‘Improvements’ needed for Mercedes
Speaking after the session, Russell highlighted his concerns over W16’s drop off in pace on the soft tyres compared to the hards.
“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,” he 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.”
Team-mate Antonelli focused more on analysing data after his first full day of a grand prix weekend with Mercedes.
“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 said.
“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.”
Feature Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz Archive/LAT Images
