Toto Wolff felt second and third on the grid for the Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport team was a good result on Saturday, particularly after the struggles the team faced during Friday practice around the Baku Street Circuit.
The Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport saw Lewis Hamilton claim a spot on the front row, ending 0.179 seconds behind Sebastian Vettel, while Valtteri Bottas was not far behind his team-mate in third as both drivers edged ahead of the two Aston Martin Red Bull Racing drivers.
“Looking at today’s results in the contexts of the struggles we experienced yesterday during practice, I have to say I’m pretty pleased to be second and third on the grid,” said Wolff.
“The guys worked very hard late into the night in order to find the right path forward, we made a step in the right direction this morning, then another for qualifying. So it was a good recovery from that perspective.”
Wolff expects the battle between Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes to be an ongoing story throughout 2018, and he expects the same three teams to be battling for victory in Sunday’s race in Azerbaijan.
“Going into qualifying, we expected a very close fight between three teams and this is exactly what we got; I think this will turn out to be the story of this 2018 season,” said Wolff.
“I expect to see all of the top six fighting for the win tomorrow and we will be working hard to make we come out of that battle on top.”
