George Russell shut down the panic narrative around Mercedes' upgrade split at Singapore. The Brit revealed he pushed for the aero rollback before his Bahrain power unit failure — the engine penalty just made it a no-brainer. Russell insists the new package isn't broken, it's the car reacting to track-specific conditions. He pointed to the wild swings on the old spec: pole by eight tenths in Baku, four tenths off in Hungary, same car both weekends. That's the nature of ground-effect sensitivity. At Sepang, Mercedes stayed close to McLaren and Ferrari while Red Bull overperformed its recent baseline, more proof the circuit shuffled the order. Russell's fallback? The exact spec that dominated Baku. If Singapore's tight confines suit the older aero philosophy, Mercedes keeps a proven pole-winning package in play while Antonelli tests the new kit. The British driver gets a free baseline comparison, and the factory gets data without surrender.
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