George Russell only managed to finish P9 in qualifying as a small yet costly mistake prevented him from improving his lap time. He admitted that Mercedes is still struggling in “high-speed corners.”
The latter is a weakness the team is trying to fix, since the W15 is not as bad in medium- and low-speed turns. However, on tracks like Suzuka, having issues in those kinds of corners compromises the performance a lot.
The Britton added that Mercedes knew the gap between them, McLaren, Aston Martin, and Ferrari would be tight, highlighting how small details make the difference.
“We predicted before the session to be about 0.1s between ourselves, Ferrari, McLaren, and Aston [Martin],” said Russell. “When it comes to that one lap in qualifying, if you nail it or you don’t quite nail it, that can be the difference these days of six positions.
“I was on a really strong lap, 0.25s up by Turn 11 and expecting to maybe finish 0.4s ahead. Made one small mistake and lost all the time. That was a bit of a shame.”
Russell pointed out how qualifying runs do not help Mercedes’s weakness as with less fuel and a higher engine mode, the speeds are only higher and, therefore, the issue increases. While on the other hand, the situation is a bit better in the race.
“We know the strengths and weaknesses of our car. The weakness is high-speed corners.
“When you get to qualifying, you take the fuel out, the corners are becoming faster and faster and faster. So, the pace naturally sort of goes away from us a bit in those corners…
“We’re definitely doing more drastic test items at the moment to try and get on top of this high-speed performance. The car is correlating well in low speed and medium speed.
“But we’re a long way off in the high speed compared to what we’re seeing back at base. So, we need to get on top of that.
“Whereas in the race, you’re probably going around the corners 30km/h slower in a high speed, which brings it back into more of a medium-speed corner rather than a high-speed corner.”