“We’ll get his eighth” - Wolff’s promise to Hamilton after 0.6s gap to Red Bull

Mercedes saw George Russell and Hamilton qualify sixth and seventh respectively for Sunday’s race.

The pair ended just over six-tenths off Max Verstappen, who claimed pole position ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez.

Hamilton’s contract with Mercedes runs out at the end of F1 2023, although he’s reiterated his desire to remain with the team as he looks to win a record eighth world title.

Speaking after qualifying in Bahrain, Wolff made it clear that “we’re going to get his eighth” and that Hamilton has “another four years in him”.

“We’re super critical of ourselves and what we need to achieve,” Wolff told Sky. “There’s no such thing as a holy car. We’re looking at everything - did we get it right with the concept? Should we have reacted earlier? All of that. 

“Everyone in the engineering team sings like that. We just need to get our heads together. We’re going to get his eighth. He has compared to Alonso another four years in him as a minimum. We need to get it done.

“Even if I need to push him around the track to win the eighth. I am going to do everything that’s needed.”

Wolff believes the deficit to Red Bull is around four-tenths after Mercedes did only one run in Q3.

“Well the gap is not ridiculous considering we only ran one tyre at the end but it’s not where we want to be,” he added. “We’re continuing to develop the concept and thinking we could land and fight for pole position but that wasn’t the case today.

“If we compare one tyre against one tyre because we didn’t run the second tyre it’s maybe around four-tenths - these are all irrelevant calculations. That’s the gap and this is what we need to find or more if we want to win.

“They both didn’t have clean laps. There probably was a tenth and a half still in there. Maybe we could have overtaken Alonso with both cars but this is where we are.”