Toto Wolff has said that the margins between Mercedes and the top teams remain narrow after Lewis Hamilton qualified in fifth for the Azerbaijan GP.
Hamilton was around a second off from the frontrunners Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen at the front of the grid in qualifying in Baku, but George Russell missed out on the top 10 after dropping out of Q3 in 11th.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Wolff explained where Mercedes had lost the time to Red Bull and Ferrari out front.
“It’s confusing with the times. We’re struggling. It’s so tiny, the margins behind the top three, so we got to do the best out of it,” he said.
“No, you can’t even say that, we’re losing it in three corners. We’re pretty, pretty matched with Leclerc and Verstappen the first two corners, and then in the middle sector we get left by the Ferraris.”
Development path
Mercedes have brought a host of upgrades to Baku as they look to reset their development trajectory to close the gap to the top, but both Hamilton and Russell both voiced concerns about the brakes during practice and qualifying.
Wolff said that the issue was around the car feeling stable to drive for the pair, despite the clear pace to be gained.
“Yeah, I think we have it in a good window. It’s just generally the car is not stable for the drivers,” he said.
“It hasn’t been hasn’t got enough load and that we didn’t put any upgrade on the car for Imola. So we just need to do the best that we have out of this package.
