Andrea Kimi Antonelli had no grip, as George Russell could see the old package also working well in the F1 Singapore GP, as Mercedes faced head scratching.
After little answers in Malaysia, Mercedes decided to split the package for this weekend’s F1 Singapore GP. The 2026 points leader Antonelli is running the new package, while Russell is on the old as they extend the use even during sprint qualifying.
The results show Russell finishing second, while Antonelli is a lowly seventh. It is exactly the result that Mercedes did not want, not because of any bias, but it has left them with more questions than any answer that they were looking for.
Russell agrees that the old package seems to be working, but he feels it does not prove that the updated package is not 100% working. He knows that the results speak for itself and accepts that it hasn’t worked till now, but it is also not showing that it isn’t working.
Russell Mixed on Package, Nothing Says New Not Working
“I think we’ve seen competitive all day to be honest from the first laps in FP1,” Russell said to the media. “We obviously topped the timesheets there. When Lewis, Max was fast, and he went on a slightly different strategy to us in Q3 just doing one lap.
“Who knows what was best, but pretty satisfied with the P2. We can definitely confirm the old one is not bad, let’s see what tomorrow brings with Kimi on the upgrade. As a team, there’s still nothing telling us that it isn’t working, but it’s more driven by the stopwatch and, yeah, the stopwatch has not been great for the upgrade yet.
“So, let’s see and yeah, maybe somewhere else is a different day,” summed up Russell, as teammate Antonelli expanded on his struggles. The Italian notes how different the car is to drive from earlier in the season, which is making his run more difficult.
(Photo by Andy Hone/LAT Images)
Antonelli Highlights Unpredictability with New Package
He did not go into the details, but highlighted the unpredictability and tricky aspect. He doesn’t have hope of finding the missing time in main F1 qualifying either, but noted that they will churn out the data to see what can be done to improve the situation.
“Yes and no, to be fair, already at FP1 I was struggling and, yeah, still a lot to understand about this package,” said Antonelli to the media. “It’s really the car is very difficult, very unpredictable and very difficult to put a lap together.
“So yeah, it’s a shame because I was coming with high hopes, but so far, it’s been very difficult. I think it’s going to be a difficult weekend unless we can pull something out tomorrow, but other than that, it’s going to be very tricky. I don’t really see where we can find seven tenths, but you never know.
“Maybe tonight, with Bono, the engineer, we’re going to find something in the car. And for sure, I’m going to try to improve a little bit the driving and then let’s see, we’ll see tomorrow where we end up,” summed up Antonelli, who still holds a good advantage over Russell and his rivals, in terms of the points.
Mercedes with More Head Scratching
As for Mercedes, Andrew Shovlin admits there was a lot of head scratching inside the F1 team after a difficult Friday in Singapore after splitting the package. The result of Russell has only added to their misery, even though it is a front-row start for the Brit.
“After a difficult weekend in Malaysia, we decided to run our cars in split specification this weekend here in Singapore,” said Shovlin. “It is not the easiest track to do that at, or have the Sprint format, as it often takes a bit of time to get the car set-up dialled in.
“We’ve seen that today as whilst we’re pleased to see George on the front row, it has left us with a bit of head scratching to do to understand why the update is not bringing the performance step we expect.”
(Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Shovlin Expands on Antonelli’s Struggles
Expanding a bit on the issues, Shovlin said Antonelli suffered from a lack of confidence in braking and entry phase. It seems it is down to what the Italian said about the unpredictability of the F1 car, which is hurting his confidence in tackling a corner.
“Neither car had a great balance, although Kimi was lacking more confidence on the braking and entry phase and that’s what you need to attack a qualifying lap here,” continued Shovlin. “We’ll keep working to understand why that’s the case. We’ve got plenty of data around us to try and make some progress and, hopefully we’ll be able to get Kimi’s car in a better place for main qualifying tomorrow.”