Mercedes drivers react with amazement to large deficit Red Bull Racing

Although on Friday and Saturday morning it was already an indication that Red Bull Racing wouldn't be so competitive this weekend, the result in qualifying was quite disappointing. Also the direct competitors of Mercedes were surprised.

"I didn't know about it, but that's a very big gap," Lewis Hamilton said to Racefans.net and others afterwards. "I certainly didn't expect them to be so far behind this weekend. You've seen how fast they were here last year. I thought they had a better package than the results showed today."

Indeed, last year Verstappen achieved his first pole position of his career here and Hamilton only managed to beat the Dutchman during the race after a fierce battle. For this he needed a clever strategy from his team. That will probably be different now. Teammate Valtteri Bottas did not take this into account either.

"It's very surprising, I absolutely expected that they might be closer here than in Austria," says Bottas, just like Hamilton doesn't know if there were any problems for the Red Bull drivers during qualifying. But then again, "they weren't close to us all weekend".