Kimi Antonelli reveals narrow Mercedes tightrope in major upgrade question

Kimi Antonelli has explained how Mercedes now believes it has made a breakthrough with its troubled upgrade introduction, but that the correct window remains "difficult" to find. 

For the Singapore weekend, Mercedes has elected to run its car in two different configurations, with Antonelli initially remaining on the new spec car, introduced in Sepang last time out, with George Russell reverted to the old-spec as the team tried to find answers as to why the new parts did not immediately bring a boost to performance.

After a tricky Sprint Qualifying which left him seventh on the grid, going on to finish fourth to open up an 89-point lead over Russell in the championship after the sister car crashed out from the lead, Antonelli qualified fourth for the main race. 

Reflecting on the session, the Italian detailed how Mercedes believed it had made a breakthrough with the upgrade - but that finding the right window to extract performance from it remained very small. 

"Definitely, we are starting to see what the package can give us. However, it's still difficult to find the right window," Antonelli told media, including RacingNews365.

"We did a big step in setup, and we seem to have put the car in a better place, even by giving away a bit of performance. But the car just seemed to work in a better way.

"However, the window was still very small, very sensitive, especially throughout qualifying, but the team did a great job at turning around, and now we start to get some answers. If in Malaysia we were a bit lost, now we have the head a bit clearer. 

"[On Friday], the car was just sliding. It was sliding a bit everywhere, so we were just trying to stabilise the car a bit. 

"[We gave] away a little bit of aero performance, but having a better, a more stable platform [was key]. 

"But still, the window, even though it was better to drive, the window was still very small. But I think the good thing is that now we start to see what the package brings and the areas where we need to work on, and we are starting to get some answers, which is a good thing."