Mercedes chances of challenging Red Bull and Max Verstappen for second consecutive race at the Red Bull Ring took a big hit on Saturday after their drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas qualifies in P4 and P5 for tomorrow’s 2021 Austrian Grand Prix.
Fourth is Hamilton’s worst performance in Q3 at the Red Bull Ring since 2014, while it is the first time Mercedes missed out on a top three spot with either car in dry conditions since the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton, who signed a two year extension with the team on Saturday morning concedes that without rain on Sunday, win is out of reach of them. He thinks Red Bull is holding 0.3 second advantage over Mercedes in terms of raw pace.
Both Mercedes drivers will start the race on the Medium tyre compound like people ahead of them.
Lewis Hamilton (P4)
“This weekend is more of a challenge than it was already last week and we continue to lack pace. We tried everything to get more out of the car but the underlying pace just isn’t good enough at the moment, so we’ve got to really find performance in the following races.
I don’t know if McLaren brought an upgrade but they were mega quick today so great job from Lando. We’ve just got to try and improve, we’ve still got a long way to go. In the heat today, Red Bull seemed to step forwards and we stepped backwards so let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
Valtteri Bottas (P5)
“I was hoping to fight for the pole but today it was out of reach. It seemed like we went a little bit backwards from last weekend or others gained more than us. I would say we’re missing maybe a tenth or two from where we should have been and clearly McLaren has found something with the C5 compound this weekend, it seems to work well with their car.
I think race pace wise we should be in better shape – all the developing we’ve done with the car setup is aiming a bit more towards the race pace so we need to learn from today and then I’m sure we can get a good result for the team tomorrow. I’m still expecting a big fight with Red Bull in the race.”
Toto Wolff, CEO & Team Principal
“What started as a good day in FP3 we couldn’t translate into a good qualifying session. The gaps here are very small and our performance in qualifying wasn’t great, and that showed in the final result.
We need to analyse whether a slip-stream could have helped us but overall, we just need to continue to develop the performance of the car. Hopefully tomorrow we will be in better shape for the race and we need to take advantage of every opportunity that comes our way.”
Andrew Shovlin, Head of Trackside operations
“We obviously hoped for much better than 4th and 5th but we’ve been struggling a bit all day and with such a short lap and small gaps, you pay the price when you don’t get things right.
The hotter track today doesn’t seem to suit us and we need to question whether we were getting the soft tyre in the right window. Most cars in the final session were able to find a tenth or two but we didn’t really pick anything up and slipped further down as a result.
So, lots to work on but now we need to focus on making the most of the opportunities tomorrow. We at least managed to get both cars onto the medium tyre for the start and hopefully we can show good race pace and get ourselves back into the fight at the front.”
