The Mercedes team suffered from mixed fortunes on the second day at the Chinese Grand Prix.

An entertaining Sprint earlier in the day saw Lewis Hamilton claiming a strong second place finish having started from there.

While George Russell battling into the points in eighth having qualified in eleventh.

The team and drivers took advantage of the updated Sprint format and made several set-up changes in the search for a better car balance.

Despite those changes, Qualifying for the Grand Prix would prove more difficult.

With the track evolving rapidly, Lewis was unfortunate to lock-up on his final push lap at the Turn 14 hairpin in the first session of qualifying.

That cost him over half-a-second and he was eliminated in eighteenth.

The seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton said: “To be sat on the front-row for the Sprint was a great feeling. Racing into turn one and taking the lead reminded me of what I love so much about this sport.

“It was a challenging race but to get second was great.

“We knew Qualifying would be much more tough this afternoon though. I made some sizeable set-up changes after the Sprint to try and improve the car in the slow speed turns.

“It wasn’t too bad in some corners, but I struggled elsewhere. It was challenging to get the rear tyres to stop into turn 14 and that’s where I locked up on my final lap. If I hadn’t had that, I would have made it through to Q2.

“I’ll be giving it my best shot tomorrow. We can still have some fun even if we are starting from P18.”

However George Russell progressed through to the top ten shootout, but his last effort would only put him eighth and at the back of a tightly bunched pack of cars.

Eighth seems about right for the British driver as he progressed from the first session in seventh and the second session in sixth.

George Russell said after the days events: “We didn’t have our best day today. With the strong wind, it was very challenging out there. The conditions had changed from Friday too, so we had to adapt.

“We took the Soft tyre for the Sprint and it was definitely worth the gamble. It performed OK and it gave us some good learnings for tomorrow. Ultimately, we did well to score a point.

“Qualifying was also tricky. My first lap in Q2 was looking very strong but the red flag forced us to abort. We had to use another set of new tyres to progress to Q3.

“Without that, we would have had two new sets for the final part of Qualifying and it could have been a different outcome but who knows. We are in that fight between P3 and P8 and, unfortunately, we’ve found ourselves at the back end of that battle in the last few races in Qualifying.

“Small differences can have a major impact. It is hard to predict what will happen tomorrow. It’s all to play for with those cars around us so hopefully we have the pace to move forward.”