Mercedes drivers unhappy with the W15's performance at Spa

Following a series of strong results in recent rounds, Mercedes appear to have lack pace to the field-leading McLaren and Red Bull at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Although the Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell showed flashes of impressive speed on the practice day at the Belgian Grand Prix, the Brackley-based outfit looks slightly off the pace compared the field-leading McLaren and Red Bull.

The German outfit played around with different downforce level configurations. The opening session saw Mercedes run lower wing levels which meant that Russell and Hamilton were struggling in the second sector of the Spa track.

Athough Mercedes added more downforce to help better balance its performance for the later session, it did not improve its performance relative to the opposition at all – with Russell ending second practice in sixth spot and Hamilton down in 10th.

Russell commented: "It is always nice to be here at Spa-Francorchamps and getting to drive a car in anger around this incredible circuit. The resurfaced tarmac has also made it extra fast this year. We’ve got some work to do overnight to find some lap time.

"The McLarens and the Red Bull of Max Verstappen looked to be a step ahead of us today. We need to dig through the data and put in the work in the simulator at Brackley to hopefully unearth some gains and get closer to them. I’m sure we can do that.

"Tomorrow will definitely be a very different day if we are able to do so. The forecast is also for rain tomorrow so that will add another factor into the mix. We have often had good Fridays and the others have caught up come Saturday, so hopefully it will be us doing that this weekend."

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton looked strong on Pirelli's medium tyres, but he was unable to extract everything from the soft rubber during his qualifying simulation.

"Today wasn’t our best day as the car wasn’t feeling particularly strong. FP1 wasn’t great and we worked on some changes for FP2. That initially improved the balance and it felt good, but once we put the Soft tyre on we struggled more.

"It was definitely an improvement overall, but others took a step forward to too. We’ve got some time to find overnight, and we will be aiming to do so.

"There could be some wet weather tomorrow so that good change things up. If it does rain, it will likely open things up a little bit and we can hopefully take advantage of that. Let’s see what Saturday brings."

"We've struggled with the car today so we will be working hard overnight as to how to improve for tomorrow. We are losing time across the full speed range, rather than in specific corners, and the long run isn't where we need it to be either. Both of those are linked by a lack of balance and grip.

"We therefore have plenty of work to do. We have our team in the simulator back at Brackley already looking at setup options and aiming to make solid progress.

"There is a good chance we will see some wet running tomorrow. That may make it difficult to evaluate overnight changes, but we will see what we can learn and what Saturday brings," concluded Shovlin.