World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli cast further doubt over the performance of Mercedes' recent upgrade package as he explained his car was "very difficult" to drive during Sprint Qualifying in Singapore. After the long-awaited upgrades failed to deliver improved performance when they debuted at last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Mercedes decided to compare different specifications of the car in Singapore. Antonelli is running the latest version, which included an additional front wing that had not been available in Malaysia, while George Russell is running the pre-Malaysia version of the car that he won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in last month.
The early evidence was concerning for Mercedes as Russell finished second to Max Verstappen in the shortened qualifying session, with Antonelli more than half a second down on his team-mate in seventh. Asked whether he was surprised by the performance, Antonelli said: "Yes and no, to be fair. Already in FP1 I was struggling.
"Still a lot to understand about this package. The car is very difficult, very unpredictable, and very difficult to put a lap together. "It's a shame because I was coming with high hopes, but so far it's been very difficult." Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player While both Antonelli and Mercedes have built extremely commanding leads in the drivers' and constructors' standings and are near certainties for this year's titles, a lack of clarity in future development direction could have consequences for next season.
"I think it's going to be a difficult weekend unless we can pull something out tomorrow," Antonelli continued. "But other than that it's going to be very tricky. I don't really see where we can find seven tenths.
Maybe tonight, (Antonelli's engineer) Bono (Peter Bonnington) and the engineers are going to find something in the car. "And for sure, I'm going to try to improve a little bit the driving, and then we'll see tomorrow where we'll end up." 1) Max Verstappen, Red Bull2) George Russell, Mercedes3) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari4) Oscar Piastri, McLaren5) Lando Norris, McLaren6) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari7) Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes8) Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls9) Isack Hadjar, Red Bull10) Pierre Gasly, Alpine Mercedes' major Malaysia upgrade was their first significant new package since May's Canadian Grand Prix and team principal Toto Wolff suggested the Silver Arrows may bring upgrades in smaller steps in the future. "We felt that the right strategic decision was to work towards a bigger one and then introduce it.
Obviously, with the risk of if it doesn't work as you've anticipated, it's just quite difficult to dial yourself out and understand why it hasn't worked," he said. "So, it's something which we will look at in the future of saying maybe we'll do smaller steps, and then if there is a warning light saying, 'OK', it's easier to undo. But there is no clear way at that stage because so far it has worked.
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