Mercedes seems to have solved porpoising: "It's been a solid start"

Andrew Shovlin is happy with Mercedes' progression. The updates are paying off and that is why George Russell and Lewis Hamilton took the second and third positions in the second free practice. Mercedes is happy with the leap forward but knows that the gap between the two absolute top teams has not yet been closed.

"It's been a solid start to the weekend, the car is behaving more normally here in Barcelona. We've made progress on reducing the bouncing with this aero update and the pace looks to be a step forward; not quite at the level of Red Bull and Ferrari but we've hopefully pulled ourselves out of the midfield group," said Shovlin in Mercedes' press release.

Strategy of great importance

Not only does the car look a little different from the first five Grands Prix this year, this weekend there are two fresh engines fitted in the cars of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes says they are happy that this all went smoothly and that they did not run into any crazy things when changing the engine.

The amount of tire degradation seems to be going to decide who gets to climb on the top step of the podium on Sunday. The hot conditions are giving the rubber a hard time. "It's very easy to overheat them and the degradation rates are high which should make the strategy quite interesting. We'll be running in the simulator in Brackley tonight, trying to find a bit more time in the car but at least we have a good platform to base this on and hopefully we can find a little bit more to carry into tomorrow," Shovlin concludes his story.