Mercedes thinks its “pretty bad day” of practice at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix was the result of losing 0.9 seconds on the straights against McLaren.
Neither George Russell nor Lewis Hamilton made much of an impression on the opening day of running at Spa-Francorchamps, as McLaren ended FP2 1-2 on the timesheets.
Having run with too little wing in the morning and consequently struggled in the second sector of the Spa track, Mercedes added more downforce to help better balance its performance for the later session.
However, while that set-up change did boost the overall feel of the car, it did not improve its performance relative to the opposition at all – with Russell ending second practice in sixth spot and Hamilton down in 10th.
Of particular concern to Mercedes was the fact that its data traces suggested the main deficit to the opposition was in straightline speed – with early estimates suggesting the gap to the benchmark being as much as 0.9 seconds on the straights alone.
Speaking afterwards, Hamilton said that, after a run of good races for Mercedes, there were not many positives to take away from the early running at Spa-Francorchamps.
“It was a pretty bad day,” admitted Hamilton, who lost his first two attempts on softs in FP2. “Obviously, it's been feeling great in the past couple of races, and it just felt completely different today.
“We worked on it. The first session was not great, but then in the second session, we made some changes, and it started off great. Then, when I got to the soft tyre, I just couldn't improve.
“There's a bunch of balance issues we have through the lap, and it was better in this session, but everyone else went even better. So, to be 1.2 seconds behind is not great.”
Russell added: “We have got some work to do tonight. I think McLaren are definitely a step ahead of us at the moment, and Red Bull. So, we just need to keep on assessing and go from there.”
Russell felt that the competitive picture of the weekend was not totally locked in though, with him suspecting McLaren ran in a high engine mode.
“I think the McLarens were at max power, which gives you a couple of tenths around this track,” he said.
“So, tomorrow is definitely a different day, and I'm sure we can find a bit more tonight. We've often had very good Fridays, and the others have caught up on Saturday, so hopefully that'll be us this weekend.”
