Mercedes candid in reflection on Saturday.

Mercedes' technical director, Mike Elliott found time to speak to Sky Sports post a disappointing qualifying session for his team. In which it saw Lewis Hamilton in P5 and George Russell in P8 after what was a promising Q1 and Q2. 

Honesty is key

"To be honest, we were hoping for better." were the first words out of Elliott's mouth, which sum up how Mercedes' Saturday finished up, the technical director then continued "We had a decent FP3. It looked like we were pretty quick then and in some ways for me, it would have been pretty nice to see how we were quick in the dry"

Qualifying for Mercedes

"We did the right job to get both cars to Q3 and then it was all about being in the right place at the right time in the right position and what you saw is you needed to build the temperature up in the tyres." Elliott adds as he reflects on the unsuccessful qualifying, "Trying to get that right and being on the right place at the right time is challenging. Fifth and eighth is not bad from where we have been but we hoped for better. It is difficult to know."

"If you looked at our long run on Friday, it was not much of a long run, but we looked pretty decent." concludes the Brit when asked about chances on Sunday