George Russell is concerned about Ferrari’s pace and tyre wear at Silverstone after Lewis Hamilton easily caught and passed him during a late-session run in FP1.
He pointed out to Mercedes that Hamilton’s tyres looked “far cleaner” than those on his W16.
George Russell: Ferrari have ‘taken a step forward’
Nine-time British Grand Prix winner Hamilton began his first home race as a Ferrari driver with a P1 in Friday’s opening practice session where he was 0.023s up on Lando Norris.
As for Russell, one of four Britons contesting this weekend’s Grand Prix, he was fifth fastest, 0.271s down on his former Mercedes team-mate.
While the first part of the session saw most of the field run on Pirelli’s medium tyres, with a few drivers using the hard rubber, the traditional qualifying simulation began just after the halfway point as the drivers swapped to the soft tyres.
This year that’s Pirelli’s C6 compound.
Hamilton’s first attempt was blighted by traffic, leaving him down in 12th place, but the seven-time World Champion went for a second flying lap and shot to the top of the timesheet.
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The final part of the session saw many of the drivers tackle longer runs on the soft tyres with Hamilton powering past Russell into Stowe.
Russell, in a message that was not broadcast, told Mercedes: “His inside shoulders look far cleaner than ours at the rear.”
It should be noted that Russell was on his ninth lap on that set of tyres whereas Hamilton was on his sixth.
FP2 concluded with Lando Norris quickest on a 1:25.816, two-tenths up on Charles Leclerc with Hamilton third while Russell was lagging behind in eighth place, 0.707s off the pace.
The Mercedes driver voiced his concerns about Ferrari’s pace when he spoke with the media, including PlanetF1.com, after FP2.
“Ferrari have turned it up the last couple of races,” he said. “They’ve been strong in race pace all season really, but they’ve been having bad qualifyings.
“But I think now we are entering summer, everyone is overheating a little bit more and we are probably taking a step backwards, and they’ve taken a step forward purely because of the temperature.
“So that’s probably not great for them for some reasons, but it is also not great for us for other reasons too. I just hope we can improve for the rest of the week.”
The good news for Russell is that cooler conditions, potentially even a few drops of rain, are forecast for Saturday’s running as well as Sunday’s Grand Prix.
But even that good news is a “little frustrating” for the Briton as he says Mercedes are “at the mercy of the weather and we need to improve that, especially now we are entering the summer months. We are doing everything we can to improve it.
“I think our fortunes will turn a little bit and it will come back towards us, but, as I said, we can’t be at the mercy of the weather and we are right now.”
Mercy or not, Russell is looking forward to a cooler and perhaps wetter qualifying session.
“Yeah for sure, coldness definitely. If it is wet for qualifying then definitely excited for that,” said the 27-year-old. “It’s a bit of a unique one because the wet tyres actually deg more than the dry tyres.
“It’s like, I don’t want to get too bogged up in the details here but actually a wet race probably wouldn’t be ideal. But we just want it… cold and dry would be ideal.”
Mercedes will line up on the Silverstone grid a point behind Ferrari in the fight to be best of the rest behind the rampant McLaren team in the Constructors’ Championship.
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