George Russell has admitted that Mercedes have work to do if they want to fight towards the front in Abu Dhabi after a highly competitive day of practice left him anticipating “surprises” in the field.
As the sun set and temperatures dropped at the Yas Marina Circuit, Russell improved from sixth to third between FP1 and FP2, albeit ending up 0.379s away from Lando Norris’ pace-setting lap in the later session.
Although the McLaren driver ended the day with a commanding lead, the rest of the pack was separated by extremely small margins, enabling midfield teams to fight alongside the frontrunners and shake up the order.
Ollie Bearman was an impressive fourth for Haas, just 0.039s slower than Russell’s best lap, and the Kick Sauber pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto were within hundredths of the 20-year-old’s time in P5 and P6.
The results have left Russell keen to extract more pace as he explained: “It was definitely feeling better this evening. It always tends to feel a bit nicer when you’re driving in the dark and the track is a bit cooler.
“I think it’s going to be tight in Qualifying, probably between ourselves, Red Bull and Ferrari. There are some other teams who were a bit unexpected as well – Bearman was right up there, and Hulkenberg as well, so we may have some surprises.
“The race pace wasn’t great in all honesty. We need to review tonight how we can improve that and see on Sunday.
“It’s not easy when you’ve got that C5 tyre – there’s a lot of grip. When it’s cool conditions, it’s easy for mistakes to happen. My lap was strong and I don’t think there was much left in the tank. We were only just P3 so we need to try and find a bit more pace overnight.”
On the other side of the Mercedes garage, his team mate Kimi Antonelli looked much happier in FP1, which was the least representative session of the weekend – taking place earlier in the day, the temperatures were higher than they would be in the all-important Qualifying hour or the race.
The Italian teenager finished the first session in P4, a little over a tenth away from Norris’ benchmark. In FP2, he dropped to P10 as the McLaren driver’s advantage opened up, leaving Antonelli 0.667s adrift, but less than three tenths behind Russell.
“We started the day pretty well,” he summarised. “I think FP2 didn’t really show the pace. The last lap on softs was looking pretty strong, but then I made a mistake in the last corner and lost a lot of time.
“We’re there in the mix. Of course, McLaren look a step ahead of everyone but the gaps are very, very close and every little mistake can really punish you. I think the long run was much better in FP2 than FP1 so that was a positive. We’ve got to keep working in order to improve for tomorrow.
“I felt pretty comfortable with the car. We’ve been trying quite a lot of stuff in terms of set-up and we’re going in the right direction, but there’s a lot of work to do.”
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