Wolff: We have to be realistic, we are third fastest

So Mercedes wasn't sandbagging after all, as qualifying on Saturday in Bahrain drew a grim picture on the World Champions' form at the start of the 2022 F1 season, as they are clearly struggling to unlock the performance they claim is hidden somewhere in their radical W13, with severe "porpoising" preventing them from doing so.

Toto Wolff spoke to Sky Sports F1 after qualifying and said: "I think we have to be realistic about our performance level at the moment.

"That is [being the] third quickest team on the grid, and Lewis has put the car there," he added, hinting that Lewis Hamilton's fifth grid position flattered the car a bit: "We are seven-tenths behind with one car, that's where we are.

"For George, it was probably us misguiding him on his last outing, because we advised him to push [on his outlap], and [he] probably had no edge anymore to the new tyre.

During practice Mercedes and its drivers claimed that their deficit to the top was in the region of eight tenths, but it seemed that they were able to shave a bit out of that gap in qualifying as, along with Hamilton's prowess at the wheel, the team was less than seven tenths slower.

However, Wolff cannot pin point where exactly they are losing out, and commented: "[It's] very difficult to make a judgment at this stage.

"I think we are running more drag, or we have the data that we are running more drag than anybody else," he revealed.

"We can see that we are losing on the main straight, but not so much in all the other ones, so we need to make an assessment after the first couple of races to see [if we are] lacking power or deployment, before we point fingers into some of the areas," the Austrian added.

Mercedes started the 2021 season on the back foot in 2021 as well as their W12 with its low rake philosophy was hurt by the floor regulations at the time, but they were able to bounce back as soon as the first race winning the 2021 Bahrain Grand Prix.

But it seems that their deficit this year is bigger, and it remains to be seen how they perform in race trim in Bahrain this Sunday, but one can never discount the Silver Arrows getting their act together, and getting back into contention.