SEPTEMBER 28, 2019

The million dollar question

A Red Bull (Max Verstappen) and a Ferrari (Charles Leclerc) were faster than the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in the first day of practice for the Russian Grand Prix.

By Dan Knutson

A Red Bull (Max Verstappen) and a Ferrari (Charles Leclerc) were faster than the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in the first day of practice for the Russian Grand Prix.

Mercedes has won every Russia Grand Prix since the event joined the Formula 1 world championship in 2014. But can Mercedes find enough speed to beat Ferrari and Red Bull this year?

"That is the million-dollar question," Hamilton said after Friday's practice sessions. "I don't know. Naturally I believe in my guys. I don't think we're getting the maximum-maximum out of our car. That's been the key issue we have had for the last three races. We're still trying to discover it. It's not easy out there. It's good to see the competition doing well. But we want to be in there fighting."

There were some suggestions at Sochi on Friday that Mercedes had been hiding its true speed by running the cars with extra fuel. But Hamilton had another view.

"It's been a day of discovery and exploring," he said. "It started off not too bad, and then it didn't really improve as the others made some big progressions. We anticipated we're losing eight-tenths of a second to the Ferraris on the straights. Nonetheless, we have been improving, but they are improving at a serious rate. So we're just trying to figure out how we can improve the car, but it's not an easy task."

Hamilton said that the balance of his car "started off good, then it kind of tailed off, and then it was a bit better towards the end of the second session."

"It's crazy because you're constantly trying to track the track progression," he said, "and as the track progression goes up, the balance shifts, so you make some changes; the front have come in better or the rears have come in better. It's a constant balancing act. You only have a few opportunities to change with the set-up. It's going to be tough day tomorrow, but I hope it's going to be raining, I heard it's going to be raining!"

Rain is predicted for Saturday. There has never been a wet F1 track session at Sochi.

"I think it would be quite nice here," Hamilton said. "I think it would it would be a much more exciting race if it was wet! As a track, it's not that easy to overtake as all the corners are so fast. I can't say it's the best designed track just because you carry so much speed through the apexes of these corners that you can't follow. But you do have these long straights to try and make up for it and we have DRS. But in the rain, it would make it easier to follow as you often choose different lines."