© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
After qualifying in P5 and P9, Toto Wolff says Mercedes has the data that shows they are “running more drag than anyone else”.
After a hard qualifying session where Lewis Hamilton qualified in P5 and George Russell in P9, Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff concedes his team is currently the third fastest on the grid.
“I think we have to be realistic of our performance level at the moment, that is third quickest team on the grid,” the Austrian told Sky F1.
“Lewis has put the car there and for George it was probably us misguiding him on his last outing, because we advised him to push the out-lap stronger and he probably had no energy any more in the new tyre.
“I think we are seven tenths behind with one car, that is where we are. We had only one run on new tyres in Q3, there’s probably another two or three tenths.
“Realistically, it’s about half a second we are missing on a single lap. Let’s see tomorrow – I’m a little bit wary about where we will be tomorrow, but in any case it’s learning.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
Toto adds that the data indicates Mercedes is losing time on the main straight more than anywhere else.
“We have the data that we are running more drag than anyone else and you can see we are losing on the main straight but not so much on all the others.
“We need to make an assessment after the first couple of races to see if we are lacking power deployment before we point fingers into other areas.
“We have been in difficult situations in the past against the very strong Ferrari power unit and last year we were four tenths off Max [at Bahrain GP qualifying],” concluded Wolff.
