Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished seventh and eighth in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps. Beforehand Mercedes had expressed their hope to compete with Red Bull Racing and Ferrari, but it was clearly not possible this Saturday. Andrew Shovlin is very disappointed.
"We were hoping to close the gap to the front here which is clearly not what we have achieved," Shovlin concluded in Mercedes' press release. "The car has been really difficult to get into a good working window here; we're having to make a lot of compromises in how we're running it in terms of balance and stiffnesses."
All weekend, things have not been going well for Mercedes. At the German racing stable, they feel they have been constantly behind the times over the past few days. " but we've also failed to do a decent lap on new tyres all weekend which is probably a separate issue that we need to investigate and understand." So there is still a lot to understand around the W13. The leak seemed to be over just before the summer break, but after the Belgian GP Mercedes seems to be back to square one.
Mercedes wants to maximise
Due to grid penalties for Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon, Hamilton and Russell both move up three spots. The podium is in sight, but it promises to be a long race. "It will be all about race pace - if we don't have that, then we're in for a tough race. As always, we'll be fighting hard to get every point that we can and maximise every opportunity in the race tomorrow." concludes Shovlin.