Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell admit the W13 was further off its main rivals than anticipated in French Grand Prix Friday practice, suggesting a hoped-for breakout weekend for the team at Paul Ricard may be out of reach.
The smooth and relatively high-speed layout of the Le Castellet-based venue is supposed to play to the strengths of the 2022 Mercedes, while high ambient temperatures should in theory aid in mitigating its weakness in tyre preparation.
But neither of those factors were particularly obvious on the timing screens on Friday, with Mercedes ending the day 0.764s off the pace in Russell’s hands and with Hamilton another two tenths down.
“I think our high-fuel pace was pretty better than our low-fuel pace, we need to make sure we optimise tomorrow to make sure there’s no midfield cars between us and the front four, and then see how we get on for Sunday,” Russell summed up.
“But I think the Ferraris struggled a bit more than us [in race pace], Max [Verstappen] looks very fast as usual, so… work to do.”
Asked whether hopes of winning the French GP were still alive, he said: “Outside shot is probably the way to put it. We’re probably a little bit further off the pace than we would’ve hoped.
“Work to do tonight and back at the factory. But, never say never.”
Mercedes introduced a smattering of updates at Paul Ricard, including a modified curvature of the floor to provide a better airflow to the diffuser and a cooling tweak.
But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted between Friday’s two sessions that the performance had been “underwhelming” and that the issue with getting the tyres in the right temperature window persisted.
Hamilton, who had ceded his W13 to reserve driver Nyck de Vries for FP1 before getting back into the car in FP2, said: “It wasn’t the best of sessions, naturally, because we missed the first one. I tried to get back up to speed as quick as possible.
“Nyck did a great job this morning. Kept the car in one piece and was great out there. Grateful for the work he did this morning, and we have a lot of work to do, a lot of ground to cover still.
“The car is not spectacular here, and we don’t know why, but hopefully overnight- we usually make a bit of a step, so I’m hopeful that’s the case tomorrow.”
Asked where the deficit was, he said: “Just everywhere. I mean, it’s just every corner. I’m going to have to dig deep into the data, but it just feels like we’re lacking downforce today.
“But otherwise it’s okay. I mean, I can only have empathy for the guys that are even further back. I think generally this generation of the car is definitely nowhere near as good as it used to be in terms of grip that we had in the past, but it’s also the first year of this generation so I’m sure it’ll get better over the years.
“But yeah, we have work to do. We’re a little bit further behind than we anticipated at this point.”
Hamilton indicated a repeat of fourth and fifth would be a reasonable yield for qualifying, before adding: “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t be on the podium, I think we can still be up there.
“Just still not as quick as those front guys, and a little bit further back than we were in the last race.”
