Wolff reveals why Mercedes are slightly handicapped compared to Ferrari at Monza
Having ended up sixth and seventh quickest with George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Saturday’s qualifying session at Monza, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff revealed that setup choices might pose a slight handicap for the Brackley-based outfit in its fight with Ferrari.
Mercedes drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli looked very competitive in the first two segments of qualifying, but they slightly struggled to extract the best performance on Pirelli’s soft tyres in Q3.
With margins having been so tight in qualifying, Russell ended up only sixth fastest, while Kimi Antonelli, who has an own exhibition in the Monza fan zone, took seventh. However, they will both benefit from Hamilton’s penalty.
Reflecting on Mercedes' qualifying session, team boss Toto Wolff admitted: "We were hoping for more today than P5 and P6. Our Qualifying session started well with George topping Q1 and having both cars in the top four in Q2.
"Unfortunately, our competitors improved much more in Q3 relative to ourselves and that meant we slipped back on the grid.
" There was definitely more performance in the car than we showed on those last laps so that is ultimately a frustrating end to our day.
Ferrari which are expected to turn out to be Mercedes' biggest rival at Sunday's Monza race have elected to run a lower-downforce setup. Wolff therefore expects Mercedes to struggle to makeup places today.
"Some of our rivals have opted to set up their cars to have less downforce and therefore be able to defend better on the straights tomorrow.
"That will make our ability to progress forward harder. We have shown good race pace though and we will see how everything plays out; if we can make that pace count then we can hopefully look to come away with a solid points haul.”
