An updated floor on the Mercedes W15 was intended to turn the team’s Formula 1 fortunes around, but a double SQ2 exit in Friday’s Sprint Qualifying at the Miami International Autodrome said otherwise amid George Russell and Lewis Hamilton splitting opinion regarding the team’s prospects in Saturday’s Sprint.
In Friday’s qualifying session, Russell finished 11th fastest in SQ2 with Hamilton 12th after brushing with the wall on his final lap.
Cut to the exasperated expression of Team Principal Toto Wolff in the garage for the world to see on the global feed as Mercedes struggles seem set to follow the team for a little while longer.
Following the double exit, Russell, who is continuing with the team for the foreseeable was in a much more positive mindset in comparison to Hamilton, who must be continually longing to jump into the red (and blue) Ferrari as soon as possible.
“In practice, the soft tyre was feeling really good on our car,” said Russell after Sprint Qualifying.
“The pace was good, I think it was P4, and just on the medium just couldn’t find a sweet spot, and as you say, I found myself on the wrong side of it.
“It was tight out there, we shouldn’t have been in a position to be that close to the margin, to the cut-off. And we need to work overnight and make some improvements for the main qualifier.”
Hamilton meanwhile believed Mercedes was right where it should be on merit and as he played a more despondent tune.
“We’re 7 tenths off, and that’s just, I think, the pace of our car, I think,” said the seven-time champion.
“No more experiments,” he added. “I feel like we’ve extracted everything from the car, and that’s just our pace, you know, we just have to accept it for the moment, that we’re 7 tenths off.”
Moving forward into Saturday, Russell is confident he can progress in the Sprint and pick up points.
Again, Hamilton is at odds with his younger counterpart and thinks getting anything out of the shortened race format will be “tough.”
“I’ve got no doubt we’ll move forward in the sprint race,” said Russell.
“We need to try and get on top of our qualifying woes. It’s always difficult to fight with the cars ahead when starting on the back foot.
“Everybody’s brought updates to this race. McLaren have brought a big upgrade, Aston [Martin] had something last week.
“So, we’re kind of in the same boat as everybody else, but today it just wasn’t working for us.”
Hamilton added “we’re in 12th, so I don’t expect a huge amount from there, to be honest.
“[Miami] is not an easy circuit to overtake on, or to follow, so just trying to step into the points somehow if we can.”
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