Russian Grand Prix – Mercedes in complete confidence, Verstappen in total depression with his Vmax – Eurosport uk

Mercedes and Red Bull reasoned with a head start on Friday in Sochi and adapted their programs accordingly. On the one hand, the seven-time reigning world champion team worked on all fronts, first looking for performance on “soft” tires on one lap, just to river their cars to the first two places. Why ? Because a torrential rain could prohibit any driving and transform the result of the afternoon’s practice into a qualifying result.

At the same time, Brackley’s team still kept in mind that Q1, Q2 and Q3 could take place at a staggered schedule. In Sochi, the International Automobile Federation did not wait to bring Formula 3 Race 1 from Saturday morning to Friday afternoon, and race director Michael Masi confirmed in a radio conversion to Red Bull Racing the possibility of postponing the qualification, scheduled for 3 p.m. local (2 p.m. French).

Finally, Mercedes has not forgotten that a return to good weather is expected on Sunday. With the difficulty of having to operate his cars on a “soft” lap on Saturday in the wet, and on a long “hard” run. In short, the big gap …

Mercedes pleasantly surprised by the “tender”

With Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton glued to the top two positions in Free Practice 1 and 2, Mercedes has drawn a good positive result from its start to the weekend. “In terms of time and personal feeling of the car, it was a good day, summarized Valtteri Bottas. From the first run, I had confidence and the balance was very good. So I took care of my piloting. I really found my rhythm on this track. Most importantly, the car is good on long runs so it’s encouraging for Sunday, which should be dry. “

“We filled as many boxes as possible by working on different setups, doing very clean runs, without any problem., added Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri and I have gone on quite different programs to see where it works best and now we’re going to look at the data for Saturday and Sunday. It’s apparently going to rain on Saturday, a lot, and we’re going to have to weigh everything in terms of setup, with Sunday’s dry day in mind. “

Comments corroborated by Andrew Shovlin. “We started off pretty well, with decent lap times on all types of tires., explained the chief engineer. We struggled a lot with ‘tender’ this year but today they seemed to be working well. “

Concern at Red Bull

“The weather forecast calls for heavy rain on Saturday, especially in the morning, but we expect dry Sunday, he continued. It’s going to be an interesting compromise to find the setup that works both in the rain in qualifying and on long runs in the dry. “

So for Red Bull, the approach was quite different. Milton Keynes’ team led a normal program for Sergio Pérez but put the day of Saturday in parentheses for Max Verstappen, demoted to the back of the grid following the entry into service of a fourth series of powertrain parts ( V6, turbo, MGU-H and MGU-K recuperators). On Friday, the Dutchman only worked for Sunday, and it didn’t go as well as at Mercedes. His team heard him growl a lot on the radio.

“We still have work to do on this, admitted Helmut Marko, of MV33’s concern about his lack of Vmax, a crucial asset on Sunday. We tuned the cars differently, but the effect was not optimal in both cases. But the qualification is not relevant for us. The setup will be race-oriented. “

During the 2018 Russian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen started 19th, due to a change in engine specification, and finished 6th. It was behind the wheel of a less competitive single-seater than today. And the Batavian cannot be satisfied with a top 6 under penalty of dropping big points to Lewis Hamilton, already assured by his boss, Toto Wolff, that Valtteri Bottas would offer him his victory.