Two-day conversion rules out full return to old Mercedes spec for Antonelli in Singapore

Kimi Antonelli cannot return his Mercedes fully to its previous specification during the Singapore weekend: converting the car would take two days, deputy team principal Bradley Lord said.

Mercedes did make a limited change between practice and Sprint Qualifying, fitting Antonelli with an older twin-plane front wing. But it was not a full return to the previous package. Antonelli finished seventh in Sprint Qualifying, while George Russell, running the older specification, was second.

Lord said Antonelli’s car had less consistent, less stable balance than Russell’s. Understeer required more throttle, he said, while the car felt nervous on entry to high-speed corners, costing Antonelli confidence. Antonelli also described the car as difficult and unpredictable and said it was hard to put a lap together.

The new sidepod aerodynamic concept required changes to the cooling architecture and the relocation of ancillary components. Lord said Mercedes could not swap chassis, either. The three-hour interval between the sprint and qualifying for the Grand Prix is far shorter than the two days needed for a full conversion.

Mercedes is comparing the two specifications in Singapore because, after last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, it could not tell whether the update was failing to work as expected or track conditions were influencing its performance, Toto Wolff said. After the FP1 comparison, Wolff said the new car was not necessarily slower and that one practice session was not enough for a conclusive verdict.