12/10/2025 19:10
Mercedes has urged caution heading into the final six grands prix
of the F1 season despite the surprising dominance of George
Russell's Singapore Grand Prix triumph. During qualifying at the
Marina Bay Street Circuit, Russell hit a sweet spot with the W16
that propelled him onto pole position, and a comfortable fifth win
of his F1 career, for which he was never challenged. The triumph,
alongside Kimi Antonelli's fifth place, has strengthened Mercedes'
hand in the fight for second position in the constructors'
championship, elevating it 27 points clear of Ferrari, with Red
Bull a further eight points adrift. Going into the closing quarter
of the campaign, starting with next weekend's United States Grand
Prix around the fast-flowing Circuit of the Americas, followed by
high-altitude races in Mexico City and São Paulo, trackside
engineering director Andrew Shovlin feels there may still be tough
times ahead for Mercedes, and not to read too much into Russell's
Singapore exploits. "Just to try and manage expectations here, if
you look at the circuits that we've been strong at, and
particularly the races that we've won this year, Montreal,
Singapore, they're relatively low-speed tracks," said Shovlin.
"There's no doubt that this car is working well at that slow-speed
corner region where we seem to have very good grip, and the drivers
have very good confidence in the big braking zones. "What we
haven't had so much of in those tracks is the high-speed cornering
content, and that's perhaps an area where we've struggled a bit.
"We're still working on that, still trying to look for every little
bit that's there in setup, but that's certainly something that's
coming. "If you look at a track like Austin, it's got a very, very
fast sector one, so we need to make sure we can perform in that
area. "It was encouraging to see that the car can still win races.
We saw a brilliant performance from George, and the whole team has
really been fired up from this, and that's given us a lot of energy
to take into these final six races. "Very different circuits coming
up. We're going to have to do a lot to adapt the car, but we're
definitely not going to give up the fight."
