Mercedes: "Red Bull is undoubtedly going to improve, they always do"

Mercedes look very strong at the Sochi Autodrom this weekend. The team is self-confident and somewhat surprised by the big lead they have here as we head into the second day in Russia.

"This session went very well," said Mercedes engineer Andrew Shovlin after the second free practice session on the team's Twitter channel. "We had some problems blocking the brakes in the morning. This track is quite difficult for that, there are a few places where you have to apply the brakes after high speed. We didn't actually have any tyres left for the longruns in the morning."

Is there anything Red Bull Racing can do?

Mercedes started early in the afternoon with the fast laps on the soft tyre, so they had a lot of time for the long runs afterward. In both cases, it looked impressive. On the soft tyre, the team had a one-and-a-half second lead over the rest of the field.

"In general the car looks good. In one lap we are strong compared to the whole field. That soft tyre gives us a lot of grip. Red Bull seems to be a bit behind, but they will undoubtedly make progress over night, they always do."