For two successive weekends now the previously dominant Mercedes-AMG Petronas has looked vulnerable, a fact demonstrated by the team going back to an older specification on George Russell's car for the Singapore Grand Prix weekend.
George Russell qualified second for the sprint race while championship leader Kimi Antonelli laboured to seventh place, half a second off his team-mate. But George Russell only scraped through to the final qualifying session and was outside the top 10 in the final moments of SQ2, finally stringing together a quick enough lap after the chequered flag, having locked a wheel on his previous attempt at a push lap.
Mercedes-AMG Petronas added what is understood to be its last big upgrade package of the year in last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. There, neither George Russell nor Kimi Antonelli looked like winning after Max Verstappen overtook them, and Mercedes-AMG Petronas 's woe was compounded by George Russell suffering an engine failure late in the race.
Antonelli went back to older front wing for sprint qualifying
It would be easy to assume that the upgrade package is a failure, and to take the reversion to Azerbaijan-winning spec on George Russell's car as evidence of that. But the reality is more subtle: George Russell had little to lose, since he is carrying a grid penalty into the main race on Sunday, and running split specs has enabled Mercedes-AMG Petronas to gain a better understanding of the new package than it did in Malaysia, where it had no like-for-like data.
A picture is emerging that the upgrade offers a potentially higher performance ceiling, but it is trickier to access.
"Kimi said that P7 was everything he had today," said deputy team principal Bradley Lord.
"The car's balance is less consistent and less stable with the new package compared with George's car. And it seems to be more difficult to get through the slow corners."
"You need to apply a little more throttle because of the understeer. And on the entry to the high-speed corners, the car is a bit nervous. And of course, that costs you confidence."
Source: Motorsport
