Wolff: Overall underwhelming and we underperformed

Not only were they beaten by Red Bull's Max Verstappen and the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, but also by their customer team McLaren with Lando Norris making the most of updates to the Orange car that actually work.

Wolff told Sky F1 immediately after the session that determines the grid for Sunday's race: “Overall underwhelming. We came with expectations that we would be fighting for P2 or P3, with the Ferraris and Aston Martins, and we underperformed. But racing is only on Sunday so we will see.

“You see that the time gaps are not huge – you’re talking two-tenths up and down and it makes a big difference. We are bringing something to Silverstone and hopefully, it has the impact that McLaren and Ferrari had (with their upgrades) today," explained Wolff.

For the Monaco Grand Prix last month, Mercedes ditched their failed zero-sidepod concept for the current direction with the W14, which showed promise in the past two races nd indeed even in FP1 where Hamilton was fourth quickest, albeit and notably half a second shy of Verstappen's time in the first session. In qualy it was a tenth less, but still in the same region.

With 103 top spot starts on his F1 CV, Hamilton summed up his afternoon: “It’s not P1 but I’ll take it and try and work with it. I think our race pace was possibly around the third fastest. I think the Red Bulls and Ferraris are quickest and maybe the Astons so maybe we’re fourth.

"I’m not quite sure exactly we were just trying to focus on getting around as quickly as we could. It was a very difficult session, not an easy circuit our car in general in the past has not really suited this circuit and it showed it again today.

“We will see if we can do better in Sprint qualifying, depending on the weather and temperatures. Fifth in the race on Sunday is a strong position to start from, last year I was further back and it was a tough race so I’m hoping we can have a better race on Sunday," added seven-time F1 World Champion Hamilton.

In the sister car, Russell did not find the sweetspot all day and admitted as much to reporters in the TV pen at Red Bull Ring after qualifying "Just not quick enough today. From the first lap in practice just didn't have the right feel in the car.

"In the sprint weekend, you don't have a lot of time to make changes. Let's see what we can do tonight and into tomorrow. P11 isn't the best starting position but we have had some good results from further down the field this year, so all is not lost.

"The tyre deg looked quite bad in practice so it will probably be a two-stop race. We need to understand what's going on at the moment as we are struggling, especially on Saturdays," revealed Russell.

The Grand Prix goes into pause mode, as on Saturday the Sprint Race will have its own grid-deciding shootout. On Sunday the GP side of the weekend resumes with today's standings forming the grid.