George Russell may have beaten his teammate, seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton in today's Saudi Grand Prix qualifying, but the new Mercedes driver lamented the lack of pace in the team's radical but fast flopping - W13.
It was not the result Russell wanted from Jeddah qualy: "We are one team, and as a team, it was not a good day. We don't have a handle on the car at the moment, it's been inconsistent and we're fighting to get it into this very small window.
"On our side of the garage, we managed to get it just inside that window - I don't really know why or how - and unfortunately on Lewis's side they didn't manage to. When that happens on a circuit like this on a knife-edge, you just don't have the confidence to push it to the limit.
"As a team, we're not here to fight for P5 / P6, we want more and we were nine-tenths behind Checo today, so we've got work to do.
"We know what our issue is and everyone's working day and night trying to solve it. We know there's so much lap time on the table, we just can't tap into it. We will get there, I've no doubt. But we've got to be patient.
"We can be grateful that we've got such a serious issue, but we are still the third-fastest team and that offers so much optimism. If we are still the third fastest and we have so many issues, when we solve them, we should be in a really good spot," added Russell.
Shovlin: We're leaving no stone unturned and every day we run, we're learning
Mercedes trackside boss Andrew Shovlin affirmed his driver's words in the team's Saturday report from Saudi: "We know we aren't quick enough at the moment and Lewis exiting in Q1 is just a symptom of that.
"We struggled here on single-lap pace, it was more of a challenge than Bahrain and we weren't fast enough in Bahrain. However, the car did look better in race-spec yesterday than on single runs, so we're hopeful we'll have a better package tomorrow.
"We know the races here don't normally run to plan so there's lots of opportunities to move forward and we'll no doubt gain some useful knowledge along the way. George drove strong sessions and didn't leave much in the car."
"The porpoising is priority number one because it's preventing us from running the car where we want it. We've got some avenues that are giving us good direction but it's taking us time to get those as parts on the car," explained Shovlin.
The extent of Mercedes' slide in fortunes is well illustrated by the fact that today in Saudi, there was no way Russell had a shot at top spot on the grid, yet a couple of years ago when he stepped in for Hamilton at the Sakhir Grand Prix he nearly put the car on pole. But that was a good car, this one is far from it.
Furthermore, the elephant in the room that no one is addressing:
- Why are all the Mercedes powered teams in dire straits?
- How can all four respectable outfits (bar Williams perhaps) be so woefully off the pace because of their chassis?
- Is the Merc PU of today top of the power-stakes as it once was, for so long.?
Whatever the cause of this collective nose-dive in performance by Mercedes team, it is alarming and increasing indications are the PU package is not on par with their rivals, at this early stage of the game, but no one is daring to say that just yet...
Latest News
Loading
