Overnight in Singapore, Mercedes’s manager Toto Wolff disclosed that the team had made significant modifications to its Formula One vehicle.
Toto Wolff claims that Mercedes “turned the car upside down” following a challenging start to the Singapore Grand Prix weekend of Formula One.
George Russell finished the day in seventh place during Friday’s Singaporean practice, but Lewis Hamilton could only manage to finish in eleventh, leaving both Mercedes drivers perplexed by their lack of speed.
During the last practice on Saturday before qualifying, things went better for Russell, who finished second, almost half a second slower than McLaren’s Lando Norris.
After the third practice session, Wolff told Sky Sports F1 that Mercedes had made significant alterations to their W15 rival throughout the night.
Wolff remarked, “I think you never quite understand with these cars.”
“We basically turned the automobile upside down. It appears to be in a window of considerably greater equilibrium. The entire categorization of [FP3] seemed a little strange.
“Lando is so far ahead, then there are large spreads among teammates.”
Though 1.2 seconds slower than Norris’s baseline and much slower than Russell, seven-time world champion Hamilton managed to improve significantly to finish eighth in FP3.
a dejected In an admission that Mercedes was “just a bit lost” with the setup of their vehicle on Friday, Hamilton forecast that he would have a difficult time qualifying into Q3.
“The automobile seems really challenging. A really difficult day,” Hamilton remarked following FP2. “We’ve tried every setup possible, but nothing appears to work with the configuration. Undoubtedly really difficult.
“After all of our effort, you discover that you are a second-class citizen. In the end, a little lost. I’m not sure where the automobile should go.”
Wolff responded, “They have a bit of a different set-up and we tried a few things in the session, so that’s not the gap you would normally have with the same car,” when asked why Hamilton still looked to be having trouble in FP3.
Hamilton’s divide with Russell, according to Wolff, was only “partially” grasped.
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