Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says they had the pace to get one of their cars on the front row of the grid alongside Max Verstappen.
However he admitted the team remains far from the Red Bull driver’s pace at the moment following the change of design philosophy it introduced at the previous race.
Wolff said the team’s performance with their upgrade today was “solid” and they “should have been right behind Max – this is what we’ve seen after FP3 this morning where we felt we had something in the bag.”
Lewis Hamilton was third-fastest in final practice behind the two Red Bulls. Sergio Perez failed to make the cut for Q3, giving Mercedes a shot at the front row.
“That’s why the disappointment is big because we expected more,” Wolff continued. “Having said that, if you look at the gaps it was very, very compressed with everyone. You can get it wrong easily.”
“You can see that Leclerc is out in Q1, Perez is out in Q2, so that’s a bit of a mystery today,” he added. “The wind changed 180 degrees and some were caught out, maybe, because of that.”
The team is gaining confidence in the changes it made to the car at the last race, said Wolff. “I believe in the package.
“It is a new baseline, it is from where we can continue to work on with a certain stability without needing to questions certain parts of the car, whether it’s the bodywork, the floor, the front suspension that is now established. This is what we are taking forward now.”
Verstappen was able to abandon his final timed lap but still took pole position by almost half a second from Carlos Sainz Jnr. Wolff admitted he “simply doesn’t know” how far ahead the Red Bull is.
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“I think Verstappen is just on a different level. It pisses me off to say that but that is the reality.
“There is a meritocracy, they’ve just done the best job, the driver’s driving excellent and they are just far away. And that is something which only we have in our hands to get under control.”
Hamilton enjoyed a competitive qualifying session. Despite a bizarre collision with his team mate in Q2 he reached the final 10 and will start fourth on the grid following Pierre Gasly’s penalty.
However George Russell failed to make the cut for Q3, which Wolff believes was due to a poor set-up choice.
“It was clear from the beginning that the set-up direction we went with George made the car worse,” he said. “I think from the get-go he complained that he didn’t feel any grip, that he had bouncing, the car understeered where it would before oversteer.
“That’s something which we need to unwind now to understand exactly what we could have done differently.”
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