Mercedes’ team principal admits he’s surprised that Mercedes is not yet up to speed ahead of Sunday’s season opener.
Mercedes and its team principal Toto Wolff are not used to looking up on the speed charts, but that’s exactly what the Mercedes empire has been doing this weekend, as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have been uncharacteristically down the speed charts.
In qualifying on Saturday, it was just another extension of what Mercedes has been seeing the past few weeks, as Ferrari finished 1-3 with Charles Leclerc grabbing the pole and Carlos Seanz third. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start Sunday’s race in second position.
Rounding out the top five were Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in fourth and Lewis Hamilton fifth. Then it was Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas in sixth, surprising Kevin Magnussen of Haas in seventh, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso in eighth, Mercedes’ George Russell in ninth and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly rounding out the top 10.
Wolff met the media in Bahrain ahead of qualifying on Saturday and did not sound like he was orchestrating some sort of sandbagging operation. Nope, Mercedes is just a bit slower right now, he said.
“Well, surprised? In a way, yes, because you set your expectations and so far we couldn’t reach them—but I guess you just need to understand and learn from there on,” Wolff said. “As I always say, every season the points go to zero and particularly in a season where the regs have changed considerably, you have no entitlement whatsoever to performance.
“Now that we have to understand better. “In qualifying and in the race tomorrow, we don’t really know where we stand, and if it’s not good enough then this team will prove that we can just grind ourselves out of non-performance.”
Lewis Hamilton starts his quest for an eighth championship in fifth position Sunday.
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Wolff went so far as to pick someone other than Mercedes as the race-day favorite.
“Well, as it stands, when we make our assumptions based on the free practice sessions, no,” Wolff said when asked if he thought that Mercedes was still the team to beat. “I think Red Bull is in a league of their own, and then then there is a bunch of teams that are within a corridor of fuel weight and engine modes. But even there, it’s great to see that teams like (Alfa Romeo) and (Alpine) are right there in the free practice sessions. And also, this is what I said, the regulations were made in order to bunch the field up and that’s what’s going to happen.”
The disappointment so far in Bahrain is proving to be an extension of what Wolff and Mercedes saw during the opening three-day test in Barcelona and again in a second three-day test last week at Bahrain.
“You know we’d rather be a second quicker than everybody else and disappear into the sunset, but that’s not the case now. We started the season well in Barcelona and then went backwards from there on. So, now it’s about really understanding. Whatever we do now is, in a way, a process. We can do things quickly and we can do more sophisticated and profound changes over the mid-term, and this is what we are aiming to do.”
Max Verstappen, left, and Charles Leclerc will start 1-2 on Sunday in Bahrain.
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How They’ll Start the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix
- Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
- Max Verstappen, Red Bull
- Carlos Sainz, Ferrari
- Sergio Perez, Red Bull
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
- Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo
- Kevin Magnussen, Haas
- Fernando Alonso, Alpine
- George Russell, Mercedes
- Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri
- Esteban Ocon, Alpine
- Mick Schumacher, Haas
- Lando Norris, McLaren
- Alexander Albon, Williams
- Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo
- Yuki Tsunoda, AlfaTauri
- Nico Hulkenberg, Aston Martin
- Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren
- Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
- Nicholas Latifi, Williams
Keyword: Ferrari, Red Bull dominate F1 Bahrain GP Qualifying; Mercedes' Wolff Calls Red Bull 'Class of the Field'