“Clearly, there is a bit of pace in the car and it’s just about getting the most out of the tyre, so we need to understand why that is.”
Russell had finished Friday’s opening session in seventh while narrowly avoiding late contact with the wall at Turn 4 after clipping the grass, a moment that he put down to “pushing the limits a little bit too much”.
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Assessing Mercedes’ chances of being in contention to top the podium on Sunday, Russell added:
“Let’s see what we can achieve overnight. If the session had stopped after the hard tyre and if the session had stopped after the medium tyre in FP1, I’d have said definitely, we’re there or thereabouts.
“But obviously, you don’t qualify on the hard or medium tyre, you qualify on the soft tyre, and we don’t seem so competitive on that one. I’m sure we’ll find some improvements tonight.”
