George Russell has lamented a “very dangerous qualifying” for Mercedes in Sepang as Purple Bull pulled off a shock pole place on the Method 1 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
All eyes had been on Mercedes in Sepang, after the Silver Arrows claimed that its newly launched improve might be price as a lot as three tenths of a second per lap.
As a substitute, it grew to become clear throughout qualifying that Mercedes had not made the bounce in efficiency anticipated, constantly lapping over half a second down on shock pole-sitters Max Verstappen and Purple Bull.
Russell appeared to wrestle extra compared to teammate Kimi Antonelli, ending up over seven tenths of a second adrift of Verstappen, down in seventh place.
Requested after qualifying Russell was misplaced as to the rationale behind Mercedes’ sudden hunch in efficiency.
“No, to be sincere,” he mentioned to media, together with Motorsport Week.
“Clearly this circuit is a little bit of an outlier when it comes to the abrasiveness of the tarmac, you realize, the lap instances.
“Seven years in the past we had been about six or seven seconds sooner and at sure factors on the observe it feels such as you’re driving on gravel.
“Which is similar for everybody, nonetheless it’s clearly affecting us greater than others.”
George Russell confirms “problem” going through Mercedes in Sepang
Russell confirmed that Mercedes is going through a problem to grasp the automotive’s behaviour in Malaysia, lamenting its efficiency and questioned whether or not the improve was an enchancment.
“Effectively that’s the large query mark,” he mentioned.
“If you happen to might have completed a direct back-to-back it might have been nice to know, however that’s the problem of this sport.
“If I put the improve bundle on final week, even when it was worse, we most likely nonetheless would have been on pole. And we’d have been saying it was unbelievable.
“And equally if we had the outdated automotive right here, possibly the end result would have been even worse. In order that’s the problem. As a staff we now have but to have, let’s say, a foul race this complete season and this was clearly a really dangerous qualifying for us.
“All of the numbers say it’s an enchancment, however clearly it’s a sport the place we have to observe the lap instances and never what the numbers say. So the numbers look completely fantastic and in keeping with expectations, nonetheless the end result wasn’t.
“Effectively, I feel there’s going to be quite a bit taking place tomorrow. The tyre deg is big, I feel race tempo will probably be king. So though at present was an actual disappointment, it’s not the be-all end-all.”