Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff says the “unexpected” need to cool the engine on both its cars during the Bahrain Grand Prix cost the drivers 0.5 seconds a lap.
George Russell started third but capitalised on Charles Leclerc encountering brake trouble to head a queue of cars behind leader Max Verstappen in the opening stages.
However, Russell was later told to not use his overtake mode and was overtaken by both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari cars to drop to fifth at the end.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton struggled to make progress from ninth on the grid and came home seventh having also been warned that he needed to cool his powertrain.
With Mercedes having fronted a 1-2 in the second practice session before Russell qualified third, Wolff reveals that concerns on the engine side hampered its potential.
“For us testing was pretty good and the performances on Thursday and Friday were encouraging,” Wolff said. “The car was stable and good and the drivers liked it.
“Start went fine and then unfortunately we had to start cooling the engine more than we expected. We don’t understand yet where that came from.
“That was unexpected and then from then on when you have to switch 0.3-0.4 secs of power-unit performance off and have to lift and coast, it was all together 0.5-0.6 secs that we couldn’t take from what their car had in it and therefore it wasn’t great fun.”
Despite hopes that the field had closed on Red Bull after a tight qualifying hour, Max Verstappen cruised to victory with a winning margin of 22s over his team-mate.
Wolff concedes that Verstappen “is not in a different league but he’s in a different galaxy” and described the Dutchman’s relentless performance as “extraordinary”.
“Everybody else, we saw the differences between the Ferraris and the group Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes we are probably in a similar ballpark and we just need to look at ourselves, get on top of our problems and if we are able to manage our race weekend better, we will be racing those guys,” he added.
Asked whether Verstappen appeared uncatchable compared to last term, Wolff replied: “Unfortunately, yes. Just have to acknowledge his performance levels are really strong.”
However, Wolff admits that he retains hope that Mercedes can chase down Red Bull this season, citing Sergio Perez’s deficit to Verstappen as a positive for Red Bull’s rivals.
“In qualifying we were pretty close together. That was good and I believe our performance was masked by our problems,” he said.
“Perez is 20 seconds behind his team-mate, so we have hope. That is maybe the silver lining I can see, but it is very thin and far away and I almost can’t see that far.”
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