Mercedes Brought More Downforce. Sepang’s Tires Are Blunting the Benefit.

Mercedes’ upgraded car faced a stubborn limit on Friday: overheating tires, with long-run pace causing more concern than the practice standings.

Mercedes brought its latest upgrades to Sepang, but the extra downforce hasn’t delivered the step it wanted yet. George Russell’s explanation was straightforward: tire overheating was reducing the benefit.

Friday practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia left Russell seventh and Kimi Antonelli eighth in FP2. The bigger concern was how the car performed over longer runs.

More downforce, less benefit than expected

Russell pointed to the combination of warm conditions, abrasive asphalt and Sepang’s corners. He said the resulting overheating partly neutralized the gains from the update, while Mercedes hadn’t found the right operating window for the car.

That leaves setup work to do before the team can establish how much performance the package offers here.

Andrew Shovlin said experimental items had complicated the picture in FP1. Both cars ran in a representative configuration in FP2, yet Mercedes still appeared to be trailing, particularly against Red Bull.

The longer runs raise the harder questions

Shovlin considered the headline lap times unrepresentative and saw opportunities to improve single-lap performance.

“Our concern is more the long run where we seemed unusually offset on pace,” he said.

Russell’s assessment also underlined the competition: he identified Verstappen as the quickest over one lap and McLaren as strongest on longer runs. Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord described the session as among the team’s toughest Fridays of the season.

Mercedes planned overnight simulator work and further analysis to investigate setup changes. A better qualifying lap would help, but the more consequential test is whether it can sustain competitive speed through a stint. Extra downforce only delivers its reward when the tires let the drivers use it.