Toto Wolff has conceded he thought Mercedes would have “a little bit more pace” in qualifying for the F1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Wolff saw his drivers qualify third and ninth for Saturday’s race as 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Max Verstappen stormed to pole position.

168澳洲5最新开奖结果:George Russell qualified a superb third, just over 0.3s off Verstappen, while Hamilton struggled for pace through the thre🅰e qualifying segment🅷s.

The seven-time world champion blamed a setup change, focusing more on the race, as to why he under🌱performed relative to Russell.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the session, Wolff said he “hoped for more” in qualifying after a 1-2 finish in second practice 🍨on Thursday.

“I think P3 is OK. We thought we had a littl🙈e bit more pace,” he🐎 said. “0.3s off pole. Yesterday it looked better but we put the car in a sweet spot for tomorrow’s race - at least that’s what we hope.

“With𝔉 P3, 🅘P9, it’s so close the gaps. I would have hoped for more.”

On🍃 Hamilton’s pace specifically, he added: “Just ti🤪ny margins.

“You get the tyre inꩵ the optimum window. It’s just a two-tenths difference and then you’re right in the game.”

There were some suggestions after practice that Mercedes were running their engines more aggressiv▨ely in practice hence their hꦰeadline times in FP2.

Howev🍌er, Wolff refuted that😼 claim, citing setup changes.

Difference, turn the engines up early?

“No, I think the setup changes contributed to today’s perform▨ance. At the beginning of the qualifying we thought ‘oh, we’ve taken too much performance off’, sacrificed for tomorrow’s race but at the end we got it quite OK with George,” he explained.

“Tไomorrow should be better🅘 but we’re learning about this car.”