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.”

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,” Antonelli continued.

“But other than that it’s going to be very tricky. I don’t really see where we can find seven tenths.

“But you never know. Maybe (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 where we’ll end up.”

Wolff suggests Mercedes may rethink upgrade strategy

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.

“I remember 2022. We thought we had one-and-a-half seconds we’re putting on the car at the beginning of the season, and that backfired.

“But since then, this year particularly, every upgrade we brought on the car, remember Montreal was a big hit, a big hit in terms of it worked very well. So, if that didn’t, why? That’s the most important question. And if we come to conclusions that say this is what wasn’t as expected, then we have to obviously think for the future.”

Russell, who starts on the front row in Saturday’s Sprint in Singapore behind pole-sitter Verstappen, says Mercedes will see how Antonelli fares over the remainder of the weekend.

“We can definitely confirm the old one is not bad. Let’s see what Saturday brings with Kimi on the upgrade,” he said.

“As a team, there’s still nothing telling us it isn’t working. But it’s a sport driven by the stopwatch and the stopwatch has not been great for the upgrade yet. Let’s see. Maybe tomorrow (Saturday) is a different day.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Singapore GP Sprint weekend schedule

Saturday October 10
9am: Singapore GP Sprint build-up*
10am: Singapore GP SPRINT*
1pm: Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying build-up
2pm: SINGAPORE GP QUALIFYING*
4pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday October 11
11.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Singapore GP build-up
1pm: THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX
3pm: Chequered Flag: Singapore GP reaction
4pm: Ted’s Notebook

*also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 is in Singapore for the last Sprint weekend of the season with Sunday’s Grand Prix at 1pm (build-up from 11.30am) live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime

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