Mercedes pleased with key element ahead of Saturday's Sprint
F1 News
Unlike at the Australian GP last weekend, George Russell will not begin the Sprint from the second row of the grid, however, Andrea Kimi Antonelli made it through until the final session for the first time in his career. The Germans are not completely satisfied with their result, but optimistic ahead of the rest of the weekend, as Andrew Shovlin shared his verdict after the day has concluded.
Busy getting to know the tyre
Russell and Antonelli finished in P5 and P7 respectively in Sprint Qualifying. According to the team's trackside engineering director, the team had to work hard to understand the mediums
"We had a decent session this morning in FP1 but going into Sprint Qualifying we were still building our understanding of exactly what to do with the Medium tyre. It seemed to be getting better on the second lap, but others were clearly able to extract the time on the first lap better than ourselves. By the end of SQ2, both drivers had set solid times; the McLarens were looking strong but we looked to be in a tight bunch behind him," in began in Mercedes's press release.
In SQ3, Shovlin also explained that in hindshigt, they should have entered the track later. "George did a reasonable lap but never felt like he had the necessary grip from the Soft tyre to challenge for pole. Kimi lacked grip in the first sector meanwhile and the sliding through the tricky first few cost him around the rest of the lap. The positive is that he is still in the mix from P7 and making it into the third segment of Qualifying continues to build his learning."
'Pleased with our long run'
While the team was not completely satisfied with their result on Friday, Shovlin sees plenty they can build on. "Tomorrow's Sprint promises to be an intriguing session. Whilst we start P5 and P7, we were pleased with our long run on the Medium compound in FP1, and the competitive order is hard to predict. We will do our best to bring home a solid haul of points before focusing our efforts on Qualifying for Sunday's Grand Prix later in the day."
This article was written in collaboration with Hidde Kok
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