Toto Wolff “hoped for more” from Mercedes in Bahrain GP F1 qualifying

Toto Wolff has conceded he thought Mercedes would have “a little bit more pace” in qualifying for the F1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Wolff saw his drivers qualify third and ninth for Saturday’s race as Max Verstappen stormed to pole position.

George Russell qualified a superb third, just over 0.3s off Verstappen, while Hamilton struggled for pace through the three qualifying segments.

The seven-time world champion blamed a setup change, focusing more on the race, as to why he underperformed relative to Russell.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the session, Wolff said he “hoped for more” in qualifying after a 1-2 finish in second practice on Thursday.

“I think P3 is OK. We thought we had a little bit more pace,” he said. “0.3s off pole. Yesterday it looked better but we put the car in a sweet spot for tomorrow’s race - at least that’s what we hope.

“With P3, P9, it’s so close the gaps. I would have hoped for more.”

On Hamilton’s pace specifically, he added: “Just tiny margins.

“You get the tyre in the optimum window. It’s just a two-tenths difference and then you’re right in the game.”

There were some suggestions after practice that Mercedes were running their engines more aggressively in practice hence their headline times in FP2.

However, Wolff refuted that claim, citing setup changes.

Difference, turn the engines up early?

“No, I think the setup changes contributed to today’s performance. At the beginning of the qualifying we thought ‘oh, we’ve taken too much performance off’, sacrificed for tomorrow’s race but at the end we got it quite OK with George,” he explained.

“Tomorrow should be better but we’re learning about this car.”