George Russell: I almost fell a few times

Mercedes has finalized the car for the Melbourne stage, but has not made any progress yet…

Andreas Shovlin, chief engineer: “The first training went well. The changes we made to improve cornering performance and reduce roll after Saudi Arabia felt like a step in the right direction. Overall the car behaved well.

Unfortunately the second training went worse. Lewis felt we were going in the wrong direction when setting up the car. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to change the settings quickly, so we left them until the end of the session.

It seemed to George that the increased wind made it more difficult to drive the car during the second practice than during the first. We could have been higher in the protocol if his car had not sustained minor damage. It is clear that there is still a lot of work to be done.”

George Russel (6th): “Today I gave it my all and almost fell several times, but I was able to keep everything under control.

In the first session the results were tighter, in the second I was able to go faster on soft tires, but I took the last two corners too wide and suffered minor damage to the front wing. Without this I could have finished the session third.

We try to understand the car better. After the Saudi Arabia stage we made some adjustments, now every round is very important to assess the effectiveness of these changes. Our guys at base are working on the simulator so we can do better. Let’s see what tomorrow brings – everything could be completely different.”

Lewis Hamilton (18th): “Today not everything went well. We started the day with a clean slate and the car performed well in the first practice session. Before the start of the second we made some changes, unfortunately this worsened the situation.

We can take positives from the first session. We will work hard all night to do better tomorrow.”