Australian Grand Prix: George Russell and Mercedes are looking for a better ‘title’ time after practice

Formula 1 season has the first two practice sessions in books and all ten teams pour through data to look for improved lap time.

Two sessions on Friday were a mixed bag for Mercedes. As both George Russell and Rookie showed a strong tempo that lasted longer with the tighter C3 and C4 tire combinations, one-circuit tempo and rivals came out of what their opponents showed on Friday. In Russell FP1, FP1 was on P7, while Antonelli was P14 on time sheets.

Both drivers slipped in PP2, but also in P10 with Russell with Russell in P10 and Antonelli.

This “title” Times shows that Mercedes has done a little to make a pre-election ahead, and the information from the longer runs is more incentive. During the FP1, Russell C4 varies from a long painting in the average combination of 1: 22,194 from 1: 23.341. These lap times were a thin margin placed in a similar race on the same combination during Max Verstappen, because as shown here F1 time:

Take a longer launch of the C3 hard combination during FP2 Rassell, Send consecutive times, 1: 21.739 to 1: 22.244.

“It was the first day of the season,” he said. “We quickly looked at hard and medium compounds, and we felt a strong balance of the car.

“In the soft tire, we did not develop as much as you expect.

“This is something we will appreciate one night, but today it’s 40 ° C. As in the car, the pace, as in the car,” said Russell. “Our attention is now opening the pace from combining all three tires and hopefully we can do it tomorrow.”

Antonelli described the “positive” on Friday as the first day.

“It was the first day of this season. In general, I was happy with how everything went. I’m getting more confident and continue to study my study,” Rookie driver said. “Long-time running on FP2 was good and gives a strong platform for the rest of the weekend.

“We have done a job alone in a single arms to find a little more performance; mostly in the right window and in the right window and on a night. We’ve got a large number of information to do this in advance,” said Antonelli.

The team’s Trackside Engineering Andrew Shovlin appreciated the performance of tougher compounds, but it was necessary to find more performance when the team comes to the “title” time.

“The car was well, especially in the combinations of C3 and C4, Shovlin.” We have a job to improve our only flavored performance in a soft combination before professionalizing. Although we are already in the center of attention, we are confident that we can take steps to do this in one night. “

Neither Shovlin nor Antonelli was not ready to make any predictions on the peking order in Melbourne.

“It’s a bit too much to make any predictions of relative performance. We do not know what other teams do, and today we were offset in the tire strategy,” Antonelli said. “The car felt good and we will see what we can do tomorrow.”

“As expected in the weekend, it seems close to a few teams on the front,” Shovlin said. “We were a little offset with the tire choice in FP2, so it is difficult to predict the relative order.

“What we can say, even small progress will make a big difference.”