Mercedes
Mercedes ran a different programme to their rivals in FP1, opting for the hard and medium tyres in practice. They looked quick on those mediums, raising hopes for a strong afternoon. But everything unravelled when Antonelli pushed too hard on his first flying lap, spinning off into the gravel. That damaged his floor and flat-spotted his tyres, and he was never able to recover. While Russell did make SQ2, he could go no further. Having run through the gravel his team mate dragged back onto the track, Russell believed he too had damaged his floor – hence his lack of pace in SQ2.
George Russell, 13th, 1:42.330
“We had good pace in FP1, but I ran through a lot of the gravel thrown up by Kimi’s off in SQ1. In the rest of that segment of Sprint Qualifying, and my lap in SQ2, the car didn’t respond as it was before. We therefore need to pick through the data and look at the car to see if we suffered any damage. Obviously, it is a shock to be knocked out in P13 and not something we were predicting as we headed into the session. I am sure, given the size of the gap to our usual competitors, that there is a reason we will find for this deficit.
“Our attention now turns to tomorrow. We will hopefully be able to show more of the pace that we saw in FP1. Whilst scoring points in the Sprint will be difficult, we know the most important parts of the weekend are still to come with Qualifying and the Grand Prix itself. We will be working hard to put in a performance more representative of ourselves then.”
Kimi Antonelli, 20th, 1:45.394
“It was a shame to have our Sprint Qualifying session go the way it did. The car was good in FP1 and in the first half of my first lap in SQ1, it was feeling even better. Unfortunately, I got a little bit greedy on the throttle at turn 14 and had a spin through the gravel. I picked up damage from that and, despite trying my best on my second lap, the performance wasn’t there in the car to do anymore than we saw. It is a shame as we had the potential for a lot more today. It was a mistake from my side but now we will focus on getting the car in a good place for tomorrow’s Qualifying session.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“By anyone’s standards, today was a disappointment. We opted to run the Hard compound for the majority of FP1 and, when we switched to the Medium tyre for a short run at the end of the session, both drivers were relatively happy with the car’s performance. Whilst others had taken the Soft tyre, we looked to be within reach of our usual competitors.
“Unfortunately, Kimi’s spin on his first lap of the session caused damage to the floor and diffuser. He got the car back on track and tried a second effort, but the damage was so bad he couldn’t set a competitive time. George was running not too far behind Kimi as he spun and suffered some floor damage and gravel rash himself. That was likely a contributing factor in our disappointing performance in SQ2, although we will look to see if there is anything we could have done differently to extract more pace despite that.
“It will be challenging to score any meaningful points in tomorrow’s Sprint so our focus is on ensuring we get the car into a good window for Qualifying and Sunday’s Grand Prix.”