Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has expressed doubts that the team can overhaul rivals Ferrari in Russia, after the Italian squad locked out the front row of the grid during qualifying.
Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen ended Mercedes’ qualifying dominance, which stretched back to Monaco last year, by locking out the front row of the grid, as Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton took third and fourth.
Ferrari has displayed superior race pace than one-lap speed across the opening three Grands Prix of 2017, enabling Vettel to triumph in Australia and Bahrain, and Wolff is downbeat over Mercedes’ prospects of challenging its rivals.
“I’m very happy with how the guys have solved the problems from Friday to Saturday as we were far behind yesterday and we have chipped away between the sessions,” said Wolff.
“If Valtteri would have put all the sectors together we would have been on pole.
“We have to also find out why the balance on Lewis’ car was just not right, not good enough for him, so as much as I’m happy with the steps we have found it was not good enough to be on pole.
“And confidence for tomorrow is very difficult, I’m always on the pessimistic side and I’m sceptical whether we could win the race [when we are] starting from pole and have very good long runs.
“The data set that exists at the moment… they don’t give me an overwhelming feeling but the race is tomorrow and the moment where we need to perform.
“We have seen that they [Ferrari] have been very strong in race pace on the last races, so I think that we will do whatever is in our hands to win the race but it’s going to be very difficult.”
Wolff is also unsure as to why neither Bottas nor Hamilton could improve on their Q2 times during the final segment of qualifying.
“Q2 felt really strong and Valtteri in particular said it felt almost optimal,” he said.
“For some reason in Q3 we just couldn’t add any lap time any more, whether it was trying to squeeze out too much of the tyres, or crap laps, we haven’t got the answer yet, but Q2 was the faster lap.”
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