© Stephen Reuss for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
George Russell says Mercedes is “seeing a small trend that when the temperature is hotter, we seem to take a bit of a step backwards”, and they have “some ideas why that is”.
Mercedes had a difficult time in British Grand Prix free practice sessions, with George Russell finishing FP2 in P12 and Lewis Hamilton in P15.
Afterwards, George tried to work out what happened.
“Definitely not our finest Friday. I think conditions will be different tomorrow,” the Briton said.
“[We] need to try and get to the bottom of it because the pace in FP1 was looking reasonably good on the medium tyre, we thought we were right up there if we took the soft, but in FP2 we were nowhere so we just need to try and understand that.
“We’re seeing a small trend that when the temperature is hotter, we seem to take a bit of a step backwards.
“[We’ve] got some ideas why that is. Just need to dig into the data with the team and see what can do for tomorrow.”
George then said they changed the setup from FP1 to FP2, and that might have been a mistake.
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“We definitely made quite a few changes from P1 to P2, but maybe didn’t compensate enough for the conditions or learning. Just a difficult afternoon, for sure.
“I think it’s so windy out there at the moment for all the drivers, everybody’s speaking about it.
“Really challenging conditions so not a lot to take away from the upgrades as such but come qualifying I’m sure we’ll know where we stand.”
George was then asked about driving in front of his home crowd.
“It’s why I’ve still got half a smile on my face,” he said.
“It gives me something to be positive about and still got the energy to have a good night’s sleep and come back stronger tomorrow,” Russell concluded.
