Optimism for Mercedes at F1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix?

Mercedes, like many teams on the Formula 1 grid, brought a host of upgrades to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

If Friday’s two practice sessions are any indication, then so far, so good.

George Russell placed P2 in FP1 on Friday, with teammate Lewis Hamilton behind him in P7. Then in Friday’s second practice session both drivers were inside the top five, with Russell in P5 and Hamilton just ahead of him in P4. The drivers used the medium and the soft compounds in the early session, and then a mix of the softs and the hards in the later segment.

Following the two practice sessions, both drivers struck a rather optimistic tone in the team’s media report.

“It’s been a good start to the weekend. We had a productive day and were able to run all three compounds,” said Hamilton. “The balance of the car felt good, and I had a positive feeling out there. Several other teams look quick, in particular McLaren and Ferrari, but we’re a lot closer than we have been so far this season. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves though so let’s see how tomorrow goes.

“I am really grateful to everyone back at the factory for working so hard to bring these updates. We are seeing improvements in the car and our performance on track.”

“The car was feeling great today and both Lewis and I were happy behind-the-wheel,” added Russell. “We looked reasonably competitive and slightly closer to the front of the field than we looked in Miami. Come Qualifying tomorrow we will find out exactly where we stand in the pecking order.

“McLaren looked very strong along with Ferrari but hopefully we can find a bit more speed and get closer to them. As always, it will be fine margins. The team has done a great job to bring the updates to the car so quickly,” continued Russell. “It definitely feels like a step forward at this point. It’s great to see the motivation within the team despite having a few tough races recently.”

Andrew Shovlin, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director, called it a “productive” first day in Imola.

“We’ve had a productive day today. The car has been working well across the two sessions and we have been able to improve on the balance over the course of the day. The updates we have here all seem to be doing what we expect, which is encouraging, but the experience of the last few races has taught us that we have a fair size gap to close,” said Shovlin. “We are hoping to close that gap progressively with developments over the next few events. There’s still plenty that we can work on for both single lap and long run performance in the meantime. The gaps ahead aren’t that big so we’ll be looking hard to find a bit of additional speed overnight.”

Eagle-eyed readers might recall similar optimism from some — including this author — when Mercedes introduced some upgrades ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. However, those upgrades were just the first half of the team’s planned set of improvements, with the second half arriving ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

In their “Car Presentation Submission” to the FIA ahead of FP1 Mercedes outlined the second half of those upgrades, new for this weekend. Those include upgrades to the floor fences, the floor body, the rear wing, the beam wing, and the front corner:

Again, these are just two practice sessions.

But so far, so good.