George Russell says that Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team‘s pace on Saturday afternoon is the “biggest gap we have seen all year” after taking fifth place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying session. After struggling with porpoising all weekend, the German manufacturer find themselves split by Scuderia AlphaTauri‘s Pierre Gasly, who took sixth place in an excellent session.
Russell, who got the tow from team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, in Qualifying Three suggests that the overall pace of the car is the cause of Mercedes’ headache, as both his final lap and the overall feel of the car “felt good”.
“It was an optimised session but being over a second from pole is not where we want to be, it’s probably the biggest gap we’ve seen this year. It’s a tricky circuit, the most amount of ‘real’ corners we’ve experienced this season, so we have lots of work to do. The lap felt good, the car felt good but obviously the gap isn’t,” says the Briton.
The twenty-four year old explained that his team have been working hard, and this qualifying session has exposed the strengths and weaknesses within the team – “We expect so much from ourselves and we’re working so hard to bring more performance, but definitely this weekend has brought out the strengths and the weaknesses from all of us.”
“The feeling inside the car is okay other than down the straights, every single bump is the most rigid I have ever felt from any race car before and I can barely see the braking zone. But through the corners the car feels good, so we know it’s not a balance thing or not getting the car in the right window with the set up – it’s more the downforce,” the number sixty-three driver continued.
“We’re balancing a lot of limitations to try and get the downforce. We know there’s a lot there, but we just don’t know how to extract it.”
“We have a very, very small window where we can work this car” – Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton did the best he could considering he was giving his teammate the tow at the end of the final runs of the session, and could only really have improved by finishing ahead of Gasly in the final standings. The Briton did, however, find himself under investigation by the stewards after an incident where he supposedly slowed his car too much on his outlap when prompting Norris to overtake him.
The Stewards deemed ‘no further action’ was necessary after the session as Hamilton respected the delta, moved over to the left in an area with good visibility, and did so with the intention of being overtaken in order to get a tow.
Besides the investigation, Hamilton believes that his team is “still there”, though says that bouncing “might be a struggle tomorrow in the race”:
“There’s lots to look forward to tomorrow! It’s a tricky and chaotic race with lots that can happen. It was a difficult qualifying session because we’re constantly pushing. We have a very, very small window where we can work this car, and everything we try doesn’t give us what we want.”
Much like Russell, Hamilton says the porpoising is taking a toll on his body while in the car – “We’re making lots of changes, but we still encounter the bouncing which loses us a lot of performance. All of the performance is when you get the car low so we’re getting lower and lower but it’s bouncing more than the other cars and putting pressure on our bodies.“
“But we’re still there! We’re just very slow on the straights, which might be a struggle tomorrow in the race. We’re going to give it everything and maybe we’ll have, I hope, better race pace.”
The number forty-four driver then went on to discuss the investigation.
“I don’t really have any concerns with the stewards. Firstly, I was off-line, and you have to be within a delta time and I was within my delta time. Within that delta time I should be able to drive the speed I want, and being off-line I wasn’t holding anyone up,” the Mercedes driver explained. ” I was trying to get a tow because we’re so slow on the straights and the guys behind didn’t want to go by, so then I just went off and did my lap,” he concluded.
Mercedes will likely not be challenging for victory (or even a podium) in Sunday’s race based on the pace shown so far; however, races held at Baku City Circuit have famously been unpredictable in the past – therefore the Silver Arrows should not be counted out yet.
