Impressive long run from Mercedes
“On the flying lap I think they still have something to come up with, but on the long run they were impressive, further ahead than I imagined”. Charles Leclerc he was very honest in analyzing a Friday in which in FP2 Mercedes began to take off its mask, showing the true potential of the big favorite on the eve.
The fastest, however, was Oscar Piastri who preceded Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. The English driver commented on a two-faced Friday: “The first Friday of the season wasn’t the smoothest. FP1 was a difficult session where we struggled to optimize recovery and battery usage. This required a lot of our attention and so we weren’t able to get into set-up work until much later. When we did, the car was understeering heavily and we didn’t have time to complete a long run.”
“Fortunately we made a step forward in FP2 and had a much better sessionand – added Russell – the car seemed more balanced and we completed a good number of laps both in terms of qualifying simulation and race pace. This puts us in a good position for the rest of the weekend. The top of the rankings seem very competitive and we will have to take another step forward overnight if we want to fight for pole position“.
