Mercedes puzzled after some Friday struggles at the British Grand Prix

Whereas Mercedes hoped to begin the British Grand Prix on strong footing, the group appears to be on the again foot forward of qualifying.

Each Lewis Hamilton and George Russell struggled at instances throughout Friday’s two observe periods. Hamilton completed in P12 throughout FP1, whereas Russell was behind him in P14. Issues didn’t enhance later within the day, as Russell completed twelfth, whereas Hamilton was behind him in fifteenth.

“Right now undoubtedly wasn’t our most interesting Friday. In FP1, our tempo on the medium tyre was wanting cheap and we thought we’d be capable to make a superb step on the delicate tyre. Nonetheless in FP2, we struggled,” mentioned Russell within the group’s post-practice media report. “We’ve seen a small pattern that when temperatures are hotter, we are likely to take a step backwards. We additionally made fairly a number of modifications between periods, however we probably didn’t compensate sufficient for the circumstances. It was a troublesome afternoon for positive, however we’ll dig into the information with the Crew tonight and see what we are able to do for tomorrow.”

“It was very windy on the market, because it typically is right here at Silverstone. I feel that’s one thing that helps it change into the very best monitor on the planet. It undoubtedly made the automobile extra inconsistent although, however we’re additionally battling the identical challenges that we now have been for almost all of the season,” added Hamilton. “It’s a troublesome automobile to drive and it continues to be so. On the one lap, we didn’t appear to make any enchancment between tyres which suggests we’re lacking one thing.”

There was a silver lining to the efficiency, because the W14’s race tempo appeared stronger than its one-lap tempo. That may make issues troublesome on Saturday, however higher on Sunday.

“Right now, it appeared like we had a race automobile that would struggle for a podium, with a qualifying automobile that might wrestle to threaten the top-10. Clearly, we’ve acquired plenty of work to do to grasp why that’s,” added Andrew Shovlin, the group’s Trackside Engineering Director. “We’ve acquired some investigations ongoing, however we’d wish to test by way of extra knowledge to check our theories; we’ve additionally acquired Mick within the simulator in a single day which will probably be an enormous assist.”

“On the one lap, we didn’t appear to make any enchancment between tyres which suggests we’re lacking one thing,” chimed within the seven-time champion. “The optimistic for us is that the long term tempo wasn’t too unhealthy.”

“The optimistic from right this moment is that our low gas efficiency on the medium and exhausting tyre was good. Our long term tempo additionally appeared sturdy. It was additionally encouraging that our updates appear to be behaving as anticipated,” concluded Shovlin. “The listing of issues to repair is subsequently not lengthy, however it’s a vital one as regards to qualifying tomorrow. There may be loads of work forward, however we’ve acquired plenty of concepts and hopefully we’ll make good progress.”

The Silver Arrows get another crack at determining the solutions in FP3, forward of qualifying for the British Grand Prix on Saturday.