Mercedes: 'If we had known we would have done the same as Red Bull!'

During the Eifel Grand Prix teams were able to try it out unintentionally, but for the Grand Prix at Imola, it was planned: a race weekend of only two days. On Saturday morning, the teams were able to start the first free practice session and then go straight into qualifying.

At Mercedes, they are enjoying it, even though it is not possible for the team to do all the work in one free practice session. "We've enjoyed the two-day format so far. It's simply not possible to do all the normal homework in the space of one and a half hours, so the session ends up a bit of a compromise of both low and high fuel work," said Andrew Shovlin, the Trackside Engineering Director in the Team Review at Mercedes.

Little difference from Red Bull

The team also came across a surprise on the Italian circuit. "A bit of a surprise for us in the morning session was just how poor the soft tyre was. If we'd known that we'd have done the same FP1 programme as Red Bull and Ferrari, and saved a set for qualifying".

"With such little running in practice, qualifying is always going to be a bit of a learning curve but our cars looked like we had a bit of margin to Red Bull throughout. We're not sure where we sit to Red Bull on pace for tomorrow, they looked about the same as us in the long runs this morning, but we'll find out in the first stint when we see if we can build a gap," concluded Shovlin.