Mercedes has work to do: 'Seemed like we lost a bit of pace'

"The first session was very good in terms of single lap pace; both cars were getting good grip out of the Soft tyres and the balance was in a good place.The track is pretty bumpy, which causes issues in a couple of corners, but it's not so different to previous years and certainly not as bad as we feared,"  Shovlin said in Mercedes' official press release.

"The second session didn't look as strong, it was easy to overheat the tires and that was making it harder to be consistent. Lewis had a lap deleted that would have us looking more competitive, but regardless, it seemed like we'd lost a bit of pace. That could be down to a number of things; perhaps we'd not adapted to the hotter conditions well, others may have improved, or it could be that some of our changes haven't worked as expected."

Battle for pole with both Red Bulls

Qualifying will take place later in the evening, but the teams will first have a chance to test their final adjustments during the third free practice session. According to Shovlin, it will be an exciting evening.

"It's useful to have found a few issues that we can get stuck into this this evening as there's plenty we can do to improve, but the overall feeling from the second session is that it's going to be very tight at the front and both Red Bulls are looking like they are in the fight for pole,"  Shovlin concluded.