In recent races, the Brackley-based team have racked up a solid haul of points, taking advantage of Ferrari’s struggles — including their double DNF in Brazil — to pull clear in the Constructors’ standings and tighten their grip on second place.

With three rounds to go, Mercedes sit firmly in the runner-up spot, while the Maranello outfit trail 32 points behind.

Of the two drivers, it was Antonelli who benefited most from Mercedes’ return to the older suspension — a setup that had been scrapped in recent months after leaving the W16 stuck in a performance limbo that was proving increasingly hard to escape.

That said, the Brackley car is known to perform at its best on cooler circuits, although Russell’s dominant weekend in Singapore showed just how far the team have come with the car across the board.

“The funny thing is, at all the tracks where we were meant to be good this year, we weren’t so good, and on the tracks where we weren’t expected to be good, we were good, so it’s unexpected.” Antonelli said after claiming P2 in qualifying on Saturday.

Similarly, Antonelli looked particularly competitive on circuits he’d never raced before and had no reference data from the junior categories — something that allowed him to approach those weekends with a completely open mindset.

Mercedes head to Las Vegas with genuine hopes of victory, buoyed by last year’s dominant win — a weekend where the biting cold allowed Russell to extract the car’s full potential in low-grip conditions.