Why Mercedes thinks it has started third-best in Turkey

Formula 1 returned to Istanbul for the first time in nine years and when the cars were released they went ice-driving, rallying or like using intermediates on a dry track - pick your simile.

The teams had turned up on the Asia side of the Bosphorus Bridge expecting to immediately be lapping in the 1m23-24s range - already inside the 3.31-mile track's record lap from 2005 and Juan Pablo Montoya in an MP4-20. But when they headed out for the start of FP1, the times initially set were over two-minutes.

It was a perfect storm of cold conditions and hard tyres being forced over a fresh, smooth, oily track surface, with resurfacing work only completed inside the last two weeks. As predicted, this made things very slippery for the drivers - much like they found had the going at Portimao two races ago, but actually very much worse at the same time.

"It was a bit of a disaster today, to be honest," said Lewis Hamilton. "This track is such a fantastic circuit, and I really don't fully understand when they spend millions to redo a surface of a track. I know it had been around for a long time, but they probably could have just cleaned it maybe instead of wasting all the money. Now, the track is worse than Portimao was when we had the brand new surface there.

"It's terrifying the whole way round. It's almost like there's wet patches all over, so as you're on the slicks, you're accelerating, and it goes so fast.

"The older circuits [surfaces are] much more open between all the stones, so it works the tyres more, whereas this one is super-closed and flat and shiny. I guess the oil seeps from the tarmac, or whatever they put down. It's shit with a capital 'S'."

Damning stuff considering the expectations had been of record times at a track considered up there with the best of Tilkedromes...

Things, and times, did improve for FP2 as more and more rubber was laid down (even by the end of FP1 the times had reached the 1m35s, nevertheless over 10s slower than the 2011 pole time). But, and surely not unsurprisingly given it is approaching winter in the northern hemisphere, the track temperature actually dipped in FP2 - from 22 degrees C to 18 degrees C. At least the second session didn't feature actual wet patches (as opposed to those Hamilton uses figuratively), which stemmed from the track being washed overnight.

On the main straight, covered by the sadly empty large grandstand, the track did not dry, which left plenty of driver skating off - or in Pierre Gasly's case in FP1, spinning - at the first turn as their tyre temperatures had plummeted.

"It's terrifying the whole way round. It's almost like there's wet patches all over, so as you're on the slicks, you're accelerating, and it goes so fast" Lewis Hamilton

And this is the crux of the matter: as a result of the conditions, grip is very low and tyre warm-up is taking multiple laps to get anywhere near the best operating window for the hardest tyres in Pirelli's range, and some teams look better than others right now. The problem is worse for the rear tyres.

The big takeaway for today is that Mercedes says it currently feels third-best overall - and the times bear this out.

Overall fastest order

1. Red Bull (Verstappen) 1m28.330s
2. Ferrari (Leclerc) 1m28.731s
3. Mercedes (Bottas) 1m28.905s
4. AlphaTauri (Kvyat) 1m29.689s
5. Racing Point (Stroll) 1m30.297s
6. McLaren (Norris) 1m30.735s
7. Renault (Ocon) 1m31.380s
8. Alfa Romeo (Giovinazzi) 1m31.493s
9. Williams (Russell) 1m32.302s
10. Haas (Grosjean) 1m32.570s

In the overall times, Verstappen, who topped FP1 and FP2, led the way for Red Bull, with Charles Leclerc giving Ferrari a boost with his strong laps in the afternoon in particular, although he was also third overall in FP1.

Mercedes looked better in the soft tyre averages (below) during the late-FP2 long run data gathering, but there are two things to note about these times.

For a start, and as ever all times in practice are simply a snapshot of the day and how things appear to stand ahead of the sessions that matter, these times need to be read with a healthy dose of realism as the tyre warm-up problems all teams faced led to wild swings in laptimes over a stint. Hamilton even said, "all of a sudden you find a second because the tyres worked in a couple of corners", showing how time could be found very differently on each tour.

The other key thing to bear in mind, although solely about the soft tyre order, is that Mercedes second fastest run, completed by Valtteri Bottas', had a stint length on this tyre that was close to Verstappen's - and the Finn was slower by 0.375s.

Soft tyre order

1. Mercedes 1m32.217s 7 laps
2. Red Bull 1m32.325s 10 laps
3. Ferrari 1m32.915s 10 laps
4. Renault 1m33.156s 7 laps
5. Racing Point 1m33.428s 12 laps
6. McLaren 1m33.494s 11 laps
7. AlphaTauri 1m34.130s 16 laps
8. Haas 1m34.354s 11 laps
9. Alfa Romeo 1m35.227s 7 laps
10. Williams 1m36.146s 17 laps

Both Mercedes drivers were said to have reported their car balance changing mid-corner, and, given Hamilton said he had not "changed a single thing with the car today" in terms of a better set-up because "it's literally just tyres", it seems Mercedes has to fix its tyre temperature problem before it can even consider tweaking the handling of the W11. By way of comparison, Mercedes suggested it did not even manage to take Turn 8 flat - which Carlos Sainz Jr said he managed in his McLaren.

The team feels it has done lots mechanically to help warm the tyres - closing up the brake 'cake tins', for instance - and suspects there to be other factors at play, such as tyre conditioning or pressures.

Whatever the case, while it did gain time as its soft running went on, the team feels it could not find the big laptime improvements Verstappen and Leclerc did in the middle phase of FP2 to set the quickest times on the softs having been on them for around 10 laps - way more than a normal qualifying simulation run.

Plus, during the medium tyre long running later in the second session, where it usually has the edge over Red Bull, Mercedes appears to be behind its closest rival, and also former closest rival in Ferrari, as can be seen below.

Medium tyre order

1. Ferrari 1m31.272s 7 laps
2. Red Bull 1m31.676s 6 laps
3. Mercedes 1m32.142s 7 laps
4. Williams 1m34.090s 18 laps
5. Alfa Romeo 1m34.393s 8 laps
6. Racing Point 1m37.306s 4 laps
7. Haas 1m38.935s 10 laps
*Renault, McLaren, AlphaTauri N/A

"We've not had an easy day here, the track is clearly very low grip with the new surface and others are coping better with that than we are," said Mercedes' trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin. "We appear similarly offset on both low fuel and the long runs.

Mercedes has to fix its tyre temperature problem before it can even consider tweaking the handling of the W11.The team suggested it did not even manage to take Turn 8 flat - which Carlos Sainz Jr said he managed in his McLaren

"It seems that we find it harder than some to generate tyre temperature and whilst we'd tried a few things during the sessions to improve this, the performance gap to Red Bull still remains and Ferrari also looked like they were often ahead of us.

"It's clearly very unusual conditions and there's a lot of interesting learning that we can take from the data today. But we also have qualifying tomorrow and a race on Sunday and at the moment, we're not in great shape and are in for a tough time if we don't make significant progress overnight."

Behind the frontrunners, the midfield looks very close as ever, but there could be significant performance swings from these averages in the race given the laptime variation logged today.

But Ferrari should be very happy with its Friday, and Sebastian Vettel reporting consistency on what is wildly tricky surface is encouraging for his personal aims in his Scuderia swansong.

At the back of the pack, where George Russell is set to start after his car was fitted with a new internal combustion engine, turbocharger and MGU-H, he expects to be on the attack for a change after setting impressive pace on the mediums - done over a very long stint. One down note was his Turn 1 spin at the start of his high-fuel running in FP2.

In terms of the rest of the weekend, qualifying could be very interesting - as it is likely to come down to crucial calls on whether to come in and change tyres or not. Doing more laps builds the tyre temperature, so the balance will be about doing enough to get that without taking too much from tyres - or ruining them with spins or lock ups.

Pirelli says there was low tyre wear and degradation on the rubber used today - and it has been suggested that all three tyre compounds looked effectively new even after a stint. There was some graining on the softs, as expected on a smooth track surface, but it doesn't seem to be hurting performance overall.

Some drivers felt the track did rubber in a touch, but others were not convinced. This is crucial for the graining that did occur as Pirelli thinks that should be eased with more rubber going down. The problem is that there's no support series to help with that this weekend, and it's far from guaranteed that the weather will stay dry.

Most teams have suggested Saturday is most at risk of rain, with software predictions putting FP3 60% at risk and qualifying at 80%. But at least the FIA has confirmed to Autosport that the track won't be washed again tonight following some suggestions that that had been in the original schedule...

When it comes to the race, pre-arrival expectations were that things should be better than last time out at Imola in terms of overtaking. And while the Istanbul layout is excellent for that, the surface could be a big issue.

"There's only one racing line," said Haas driver Romain Grosjean. "That's going to make overtaking and so on quite tricky. If you're off-line, the grip level is back to what it was this morning [in FP1]."

It's worth remembering the exciting start at Portimao, because comparisons also extend to that phase of the event in Turkey - even if things are actually more extreme this time around.

Basically, cars that performed well early on in Portugal - the McLarens, Kimi Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo - should benefit again if they can replicate the aggressive tyre warm up that was so useful in Portugal - where temperatures were slightly warmer - ahead of the start.

Plus, starting on a harder compound is predicted to have a more extreme effect against the softs. Mercedes struggled on the mediums, with a bit of rain thrown in for good measure at Portimao, but with that factor also likely to be exaggerated here it's unlikely at this stage that it will start on the mediums. In terms of race strategy, all the drivers will want to forget the hards, which means a soft-medium race is most likely.

So, at the end of all that, Mercedes does indeed appear to be behind at this stage in proceedings for the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, but, as ever, don't expect it to stay there.