Mercedes upgrade stalls in Sepang tyre troubles
NXTbets Pro | Published On: October 3, 2026
Mercedes upgrade stalls
Mercedes brought a major upgrade package to Sepang, then saw the hot, abrasive track blunt its effect. The team rolled out a revised floor, rear suspension and bodywork, and Kimi Antonelli said Mercedes had expected the changes to be worth about three-tenths of a second a lap. The promise did not translate cleanly onto the timing screens. Extreme tyre degradation and overheating quickly took over and turned the day into a fight for balance and control. George Russell gave Mercedes a bright spot in first practice by finishing second, 0.383 seconds behind Max Verstappen, but the picture shifted in second practice. Russell fell to seventh after making a mistake on his flying lap, Antonelli finished eighth after a similar error and Charles Leclerc topped the session for Ferrari. The upgrade package never produced a clear step forward on the timesheets, and Sepang’s conditions kept the team from finding a clean read on its new parts.
Russell reads tyre wear
Russell said Mercedes’ problems came more from setup and tyre management than from the upgrade itself. He pointed to the need for overnight setup changes to improve pace and handle the heavy degradation that hit the car across a long run. He said he could feel more downforce in the faster corners, which gave Mercedes reason to believe the update carried real value, but the tyre wear masked those gains. That left the team with a familiar formula for the rest of the weekend, find a better balance, protect the tyres and try to uncover the speed hidden by the surface and the heat. Russell made clear that solving the tyre issue would matter more than simply judging the new package by the session sheets. The revised floor edge, sidepods and rear diffuser all sat on the car, but none of them could fully show their worth while the tyres overheated and slipped away under load. Mercedes left Friday with work to do, and Russell’s comments made the task plain, the team had to make the car easier on its tyres before any upgrade benefit could turn into lap time.
Mercedes looks ahead
Bradley Lord called it one of Mercedes’ toughest Fridays of the season, a fair label for a day that mixed high hopes with limited reward. Even so, he said the team remained in the mix behind Verstappen and could take a step forward if it found the right changes overnight. That gives Mercedes a clear target for the next session, tidy up the setup, reduce the tyre damage and let the update package do more of the work. Verstappen still looked very fast, and Russell also said McLaren’s race pace was strong, which means Mercedes sits in a tight battle and cannot afford to waste the new parts it brought to Sepang. The team had the hardware it wanted, but the conditions overpowered the result. If Mercedes can settle the car and keep the tyres alive, the revised floor, suspension and bodywork may still matter. If it cannot, the upgrade will stay stuck behind the same problem that clouded Friday from the start.
