Can Mercedes make it to Q3 this weekend? 'I'm not going to say anything'

During the first free practice session in Miami, there were positive signs at Mercedes. George Russell recorded the second time and Lewis Hamilton also finished in the top ten with a P8. However, Mercedes does not want to make any predictions yet.

Even though Mercedes looked fast during FP1 for the Miami Grand Prix, engineer Andrew Shovlin is not yet willing to say whether the team is back in contention. "I think its' been an encouraging start to the weekend. We have quite a bit of new parts on the car front and rear. We are always trying to get weight out the car. We were still overweight", he explains to Sky Sports.

So far, it seems that the new updates are working well. Compared to Imola, where warming up the tyres was difficult, Miami will be about preventing overheating. Max Verstappen already faced problems during the first session because of this.

Mercedes good enough for Q3?

"We won't get excited about where we are here because we know that we should have improved the car but we know that we have a lot of work to do. We are still building up the picture but it doesn't seem that bad here as it was in Imola", the Mercedes engineer continues.

Following the encouraging signs, Shovlin does not yet want to predict whether both cars will end up in Q3 during Saturday's qualifying session. In Imola, both cars flew out in Q2. "I am not going to say anything just yet. Getting into Q3 is a minimum expectation from this team but we have a long road to go along and we want to do it step by step."