Concerns at Mercedes: 'That has cost us today'

Mercedes was hoping to get some revenge in Italy, but the German racing stable experienced a very disappointing qualifying session. With eleventh and thirteenth times for George Russell and Lewis Hamilton respectively, Mercedes knows that there is still a lot of work to be done. Andrew Shovlin realizes that as well, as he lets us know in the team's press release.

During the first three Grands Prix, it was already apparent that Mercedes could not yet compete with Ferrari and Red Bull Racing. The two top teams simply had more speed than Mercedes, so Toto Wolff's team had to settle for a place behind the pair.

Shovlin analyzes Mercedes performance

In Italy, however, Mercedes had an even tougher time. Russell and Hamilton did not manage to reach Q3 and will therefore have to work hard during Saturday's sprint race to finish in the points. Shovlin, despite the disappointment, tries to keep a factual look at the situation.

"We have a car that doesn't generate tyre temperature sufficiently well and that has cost us today," Shovlin judges. "This is not a great track for overtaking so we expect the rest of the weekend to be a challenge but we have shown that our race pace is better than our single lap and with both the sprint and the main race we have longer than normal to try and recover."