Mercedes believes they understand what went wrong for them at the Singapore Grand Prix last year, which resulted in both Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton qualifying well over a second adrift of the pole sitting Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.
Both drivers struggled to get their tyres working in the hot and humid conditions around the Marina Bay circuit, but Mercedes have analysed exactly why that was and believe they'll avoid the same problems this weekend.
"It’s a race where a single problem can cascade into many more as the weekend progresses," said team boss Toto Wolff. "We have to optimise everything to get a solid result.
"We didn’t manage it last year and, although we believe we now understand why, only performance on the racetrack can prove our conclusions right. We are curious and excited to see how it goes."
Technical boss Paddy Lowe is confident they're on top of the problem, but warned the outcome will only be known when they take to the track.
"This was not a good race for us last year and a lot of work has been done during the intervening 12 months to understand why that was," he explained. "It’s a matter of great interest for us as a team to see if we can come back and get it right this time around.
"Of course, we haven’t been able to test on the circuit, so all of our theories are just theories at this stage.
"We’ve got a lot more work ahead to get ourselves in a good position during practice, to qualify well and then to have a strong race. But we love a challenge and are looking forward to it."
