Mercedes left baffled as Russell's old-spec car outpaces upgrade in Singapore

George Russell secured a front-row starting position alongside polesitter Max Verstappen at the Singapore Grand Prix Sprint qualifying session, but Mercedes left Marina Bay more alarmed than encouraged — because Russell was running the team’s older aerodynamic specification while team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, in the supposedly faster upgraded car, qualified seventh.

The split-specification test had been deliberately engineered by Mercedes to generate side-by-side data after their new aerodynamic package underperformed at the Malaysian Grand Prix. Rather than providing answers, the Singapore experiment has compounded the team’s concerns.

“After a difficult weekend in Malaysia, we decided to run our cars in split specification this weekend here in Singapore,” trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin told media. “It is not the easiest track to do that at, or have the Sprint format, as it often takes a bit of time to get the car set-up dialled in.”

The result — an older car on the front row, a newer one six places further back — points to a fundamental problem with the team’s wind tunnel correlation, meaning the performance gains predicted in the factory are not materialising on track.

“We’ve seen that today as while we’re pleased to see George on the front row, it has left us with a bit of head scratching to do to understand why the update is not bringing the performance step we expect,” Shovlin admitted.

Antonelli’s difficulties were particularly acute through Singapore’s tight, unforgiving 90-degree corners, where confidence under braking is essential for a fast qualifying lap. “Neither car had a great balance, although Kimi was lacking more confidence on the braking and entry phase, and that’s what you need to attack a qualifying lap here,” Shovlin noted.

With parc fermé regulations limiting what the team can change between sessions, Mercedes face a constrained window to address Antonelli’s balance issues before the Sprint race. More broadly, the failure of a major aerodynamic package — one developed with an eye on 2026 championship competitiveness — raises serious questions about the reliability of the team’s simulation tools heading into one of the sport’s most significant regulatory overhauls in years.