George Russell admits “hard tires are our only hope for the race” | F1 Spanish Grand Prix. Mercedes driver George Russell hopes the Hard tires will help mitigate the team's chronic rear tire overheating issues.

The high temperatures seen so far in Barcelona, home of the Spanish Grand Prix, will certainly favor the teams that can manage tire degradation well. Among these, at least on paper, Mercedes should be excluded.

The Brackley team continues to struggle with the thermal management of the tires, especially those on the rear axle. The high track temperatures expected for this afternoon should be another enemy for the W16 cars of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

It is no coincidence that in the first two practice sessions, the two Mercedes drivers focused on doing several long runs. We are talking about stints of 16-18 laps to understand how best to prepare the cars for today’s race.

“We know that our car in qualifying is always between fifth and second position, as it has been all season. We arrived in Q3 with 2 sets of tires, so in the race I will have a new Soft, which is valid for the race, and that’s a positive side. But we are realistic and know that in the race we won’t be fast.”

“We also made many changes to the car this weekend to improve race pace. We struggled a lot with Soft tires when it was hot. But in Bahrain, when it was hot and there were harder compounds, we finished second.”

Pirelli, at Montmelò, brought three very hard compounds. A choice always forced, given the track layout and the loads to which the tires are subjected. For this reason, George Russell is relying on the Hard tires, which this weekend are the C1s. Should these overheat, the issue might not be as serious as it would be with softer compounds.

“When tires overheat, let’s say if the tires overheat by 10 degrees on a C4, it’s much worse than if it happened on a C1. And this is the only positive aspect that gives us a bit of hope for the race.”