Antonelli says updated Mercedes was difficult after Singapore Sprint Qualifying

Kimi Antonelli was seventh in Friday’s Singapore Sprint Qualifying, 0.693 seconds behind Max Verstappen, after also placing seventh in the only practice session. After Sprint Qualifying, he said Mercedes’ updated W17 was difficult and unpredictable to drive and that he still had much to understand about the package.

Mercedes split its specifications in Singapore to assess the upgrade brought to Malaysia: Antonelli kept the updated W17, while George Russell returned to the Azerbaijan specification. Before Sprint Qualifying, team principal Toto Wolff said the Sepang results had not clarified whether the upgrade was working as expected or track conditions had influenced its performance. He also called the Singapore circuit an outlier and said the team had only one practice session as an initial data point.

Russell, running the older specification, had been fastest in practice and then placed second in Sprint Qualifying. Their practice laps came on different compounds: Russell’s fastest was on softs, while Antonelli ran mediums.

Antonelli expected a difficult weekend unless Mercedes could find something the following day. He said he could not see where the team would find seven tenths, but added that the engineers might find something in the car overnight.