Mercedes expect to bounce back on Saturday but rain may keep teams guessing

Friday in Sochi did not look encouraging for Mercedes. Red Bull and Ferrari out-paced them handily, and Lewis Hamilton gave a pessimistic assessment.

“I don’t think we’re getting the maximum out of our car,” he commented, “and that’s probably been the key issue we’ve had for the last three races.”

Are the team really that far away? It’s striking that every other team in the field was closer to their 2018 pace (or, in the case of McLaren, quicker than it) than Mercedes were. And not by small margins: Mercedes were almost two-and-a-half seconds slower than their best effort last year, whereas Ferrari were one-and-a-half seconds away and Red Bull just 0.1s slower than in 2018.

The team’s technical director James Allison indicated the team is far from being all at sea. “That was mostly a difficult day but with some bright moments in it that give us hope that we can do a good job tomorrow and on Sunday,” he said.

Allison gave plenty of cause for optimism in the Mercedes camp. “We’re quite clearly a little bit out of step with the other teams in terms of our first lap performance on a track where we’ve traditionally found it a bit difficult to get the front tyres to the temperature we need them. But we made some decent learning steps during the day and if we carry on in that direction, then things should look brighter tomorrow.

“We’re also quite reassured by the fact that on high fuel and when the first lap is taken out of the picture, the car looks swift and looks like it will be a good racing car.” Valtteri Bottas also felt the car’s single-lap pace on soft tyres could be improved, and that in race trim on the harder rubber it looked a more competitive proposition.

Despite their 0.6-second gap to Max Verstappen’s pace-setting Red Bull, Mercedes are not talking about damage limitation just yet. The Red Bulls are very likely to end up behind them on the grid anyway thanks to their engine penalties.

The timing of those changes is starting to look unfortunate, as Verstappen hinted at after practice, given their sub-par performance in Singapore. Not only do they look like genuine contenders for pole position in Russia, but the weather is expected to turn wet on Saturday, which could also have played into their hands.

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As well as potentially mixing up the order, a wet qualifying session could also mean the drivers who reach Q3 don’t have to start on used tyres, providing they don’t set their best Q2 time on slicks. We could therefore end up seeing a greater range of strategies in the race.

There is also the chance that a Red Bull driver could qualify fastest and not take pole position; indeed, they could achieve a one-two in qualifying yet both be relegated off the front row. Last year Verstappen raced from the back row of the grid to finish fifth, and he’s optimistic he’ll be able to make up places quickly again this year if he needs to.

Ferrari are wary of their pace too. “Red Bull look really quick this morning and also in the afternoon especially in sector three,” admitted Sebastian Vettel.

In Charles Leclerc’s hands the SF-90 looked fast, but throughout practice Vettel couldn’t match his team mate’s pace through the final sector. “I think we can improve especially in terms of balance, bringing the car a bit more together and then it should be a better day tomorrow,” Vettel added.

Curiously, the one team which managed to improve its 2018 time today was more pessimistic about its potential. “We tried a few things in [second practice] that clearly didn’t work or were not in the right direction,” said McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jnr. “It looks to be a challenging week for us ahead of us, because in sector three we are not able to generate any grip from the tyres or from whatever it is.”

The form guide may well be through out of the window if it rains tomorrow, and the forecast does look decidedly gloomy, with a high percentage chance of rain throughout much of the day. If qualifying stays dry, don’t be surprised if we see more of the slipstreaming shenanigans familiar from Spa and Monza, as drivers will be keen for a tow along Sochi’s several long, flat-out sections. Look out also for drivers from the front-running teams seeking to reach Q3 on the medium compound tyre, which should be possible on a dry track, and would create better strategic options for the race.

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Longest stint comparison – second practice

This chart shows all the drivers’ lap times (in seconds) during their longest unbroken stint. Very slow laps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan, right-click to reset:

Combined practice times

Pos	Driver	Car	FP1	FP2	Total laps
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda	1’34.544	1’33.162	54
2	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’34.462	1’33.497	53
3	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1’35.198	1’33.808	50
4	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’35.411	1’33.960	54
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1’35.005	1’34.201	52
6	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’36.538	1’34.971	51
7	Sergio Perez	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’36.321	1’34.998	58
8	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1’35.740	1’35.026	54
9	Lance Stroll	Racing Point-Mercedes	1’36.714	1’35.176	57
10	Alexander Albon	Red Bull-Honda	1’35.484	1’35.216	40
11	Lando Norris	McLaren-Renault	1’36.844	1’35.223	63
12	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Honda	1’38.550	1’35.337	43
13	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’36.596	1’35.351	47
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	1’36.287	1’35.370	48
15	Kimi Raikkonen	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’36.770	1’35.374	56
16	Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari	1’36.516	1’35.593	54
17	Carlos Sainz Jnr	McLaren-Renault	1’36.523	1’35.635	57
18	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’37.328	1’36.004	47
19	George Russell	Williams-Mercedes	1’38.520	1’36.785	65
20	Robert Kubica	Williams-Mercedes	1’38.670	1’37.838	65

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Teams’ progress vs 2018

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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