Why Mercedes' upgrade is still a "big question mark"
by Stuart Codling · AutosportChampionship-leading team puzzled by "things we haven't seen all year" after applying major update package in Malaysia
The Mercedes team has taken a big swing by introducing a substantial aerodynamic update package at a circuit Formula 1 hasn't visited since 2017. Has it missed?
Probably not – but, because the upgrade is a major one, Mercedes has committed to it on both cars so it has been unable to run back-to-back comparisons between old and new in identical conditions. This has added to the challenges of understanding why the W17 seems to have coped notably poorly with the Sepang track's abrasive asphalt surface.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli set the fourth-fastest time in qualifying after a mistake in Q2 meant he needed to use another set of the Pirelli C4 soft tyres, leaving him with just one remaining for Q3. George Russell was eighth fastest, though both Mercedes drivers will gain a place on the grid owing to Isack Hadjar's engine penalty.
"That is the big question mark," said Russell when asked by Autosport if the team had found it difficult to extract the potential of the new package.
"If you could have done a direct back-to-back it would have been great to know, but that's the challenge of this sport.
"If I put the upgrade package on last week, even if it was worse, we probably still would have been on pole and we'd have been saying it was fantastic. And equally, if we had the old car here, maybe the result would have been even worse.
"So that's the challenge. As a team we have yet to have, let's say, a bad race this whole season and this was clearly a very bad qualifying for us."
The Mercedes upgrade features a new floor with major revisions to the leading edge, diffuser, and furniture around the rear wheels. More significantly it adopts a very different sidepod profile which it's understood has required the internal cooling architecture to be redesigned.
For this reason it is not possible to swap between the two specifications during a race weekend.
What has really provoked puzzlement within the team is the W17's apparent aversion to the unusually rough track surface at Sepang. It is highly unlikely to have been caused by the upgrade package, but it hinders efforts to understand and optimise it because there is no equivalent data set for the previous spec.
"It's very difficult to understand," said team boss Toto Wolff. "We've been a little bit caught out on Friday with some car behaviour that we didn't see all year. But then you can say it's very hot and the tarmac is very different to all the [other] tracks.
"It looked really good in the morning [when Antonelli topped FP3 by 0.278s from Max Verstappen, who later qualified on pole]. We seem to have at least with Kimi made a step in understanding.
"And then qualifying was a little bit back to what we saw before. Just no performance.
"It looks like we're very draggy because it's the first time we're losing a lot of time on the straights, especially to Max. And then through the low speed, we are not able to turn the car. There's just too much understeer. So overall, things we haven't seen all year."
Antonelli and Russell certainly appeared to go backwards relative to their competition between final practice and qualifying. Russell was 0.741s off Verstappen's pole time despite having the typical two runs on new tyres in Q3.
Championship leader Antonelli had a lap struck off in Q2 for a track-limits violation, requiring him to go again with a new set of tyres which had originally been destined for him to use in Q3. That left him with just one opportunity to go for a timed lap in Q3 because the C4 hasn't proved resilient enough at Sepang to do more than one.
All the drivers have had to contend with a low-grip surface which is highly abrasive, owing to the more open nature of the aggregate. This has been a feature of the circuit ever since it was opened in 1999; the intention was to make the surface less slippery when wet, and to drain and dry quicker after bouts of rain.
"This circuit is a bit of an outlier in terms of the abrasiveness of the tarmac," said Russell. "The lap times seven years ago were about six or seven seconds faster and at certain points on the track it feels like you're driving on gravel, which is the same for everyone. However, it's clearly affecting us more than others.
"All the numbers say it's [the upgrade] an improvement, but obviously it's a sport where we need to follow the lap times and not what the numbers say. So the numbers look absolutely fine and in line with expectations. However, the result wasn't."
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