Antonelli casts further doubt over performance of Mercedes upgrades

Kimi Antonelli says his upgraded Mercedes is "very unpredictable" after only qualifying seventh for the Singapore GP Sprint; watch the Singapore Sprint on Saturday at 10am (build-up from 9am) ahead of Qualifying at 2pm, live on Sky Sports F1

World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli cast further doubt over the performance of Mercedes' recent upgrade package as he explained his car was "very difficult" to drive during Sprint Qualifying in Singapore.

After the long-awaited upgrades failed to deliver improved performance when they debuted at last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Mercedes decided to compare different specifications of the car in Singapore.

Antonelli is running the latest version, which included an additional front wing that had not been available in Malaysia, while George Russell is running the pre-Malaysia version of the car that he won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in last month.

The early evidence was concerning for Mercedes as Russell finished second to Max Verstappen in the shortened qualifying session, with Antonelli more than half a second down on his team-mate in seventh.

Asked whether he was surprised by the performance, Antonelli said: "Yes and no, to be fair. Already in FP1 I was struggling.

"Still a lot to understand about this package. The car is very difficult, very unpredictable, and very difficult to put a lap together.

"It's a shame because I was coming with high hopes, but so far it's been very difficult."

While both Antonelli and Mercedes have built extremely commanding leads in the drivers' and constructors' standings and are near certainties for this year's titles, a lack of clarity in future development direction could have consequences for next season.

"I think it's going to be a difficult weekend unless we can pull something out tomorrow," Antonelli continued.

"But other than that it's going to be very tricky. I don't really see where we can find seven tenths.

"But you never know. Maybe tonight, (Antonelli's engineer) Bono (Peter Bonnington) and the engineers are going to find something in the car.

"And for sure, I'm going to try to improve a little bit the driving, and then we'll see tomorrow where we'll end up."

1) Max Verstappen, Red Bull 2) George Russell, Mercedes 3) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari 4) Oscar Piastri, McLaren 5) Lando Norris, McLaren 6) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari 7) Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes 8) Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls 9) Isack Hadjar, Red Bull 10) Pierre Gasly, Alpine