Mercedes “certainly not ahead” of Ferrari, McLaren - Russell

The three-day test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya got underway on Wednesday, with McLaren’s Lando Norris setting the pace.

Charles Leclerc took to the top on day two as Russell set the fourth-fastest time in the Mercedes W13, 0.9s off the Ferrari.

Historically, Mercedes never tends to show its true hand in terms of performance, usually focusing on higher fuel runs and improving reliability. 

Commenting on Ferrari and McLaren’s performance at the end of the second day, Russell said: “Certainly not ahead, pretty sure of that. They [Ferrari and McLaren] seem to have things well under control. They are on top of everything and look very strong in low and high fuel and with the tyre management. Who knows! 

“We all know that we are on different programmes but we definitely know from the average of all the different runs, we’re behind them at the moment. So let’s wait and see. The championship’s not won in Barcelona pre-season testing, but it’s certainly been an intriguing two days for now.”

Porpoising has been affecting all 10 teams during the opening two days of the test as they get to grips with the new cars and the impact of the ground effect floor.

Russell conceded that teams will need to find a “compromise” due to the porpoising in a bid to extract the most performance from the car.

“It’s always nice to jump back in the car,” Russell added. “It’s just really intriguing this test, new cars, new tyres, different dynamic out there. I think you could see some substantial issues with some of the cars on the straights and the bottoming. This is a compromise we need to find to go quickest around the lap. 

“I don’t think it’s something any teams have experienced before but there’s some interesting things out there, but that’s what testing is for. Some teams, a red team and an orange team in particular, look very, very competitive. But we’ll see what tomorrow brings and what we can do between here and Bahrain.”