Vowles aware of troubles to rivals: "We are almost 6 months behind them"

James Vowles is hopeful of a comeback for Mercedes in the 'next two or three races' after Lewis Hamilton and George Russell ended a qualifying session in fourth and sixth position, but the duo were still over 400-hundreds of a second down on Sergio Perez in third. The Mercedes chief strategist states that there is a big difference in development compared to their rivals Ferrari and Red Bull and that porpoising was a big problem for the team.

“It’s clear that at the beginning of the season, there was some porpoising and we were really affected by this and much more than the others," he told Canal+, "in Baku or Monaco, we were losing, I would even say up to a second sometimes, only with porpoising.

"We worked so much, now, I don’t know if the cameras could show it, but now I feel we are better than Ferrari or RedBull. Today, it is not a question of porpoising, it is a question of support."

The Brit went on to add his thoughts on the support problems for Mercedes compared to their rivals, "the problem is that before, in a tunnel, it was very simple. You do jobs in a tunnel that give you support, very simple. Now, it doesn’t work like that anymore, you have to find support that doesn’t make you porpoised at the same time."

Red Bull and Ferrari far ahead of Mercedes

Vowles finished by stating his worries about how far the team's rivals are ahead, but also expressed his hopes of a return to the top after the summer break: "For the moment, I think that Ferrari and RedBull have done much better than us, we are starting to learn but we are almost 6 months behind them. I am sure that we will come back, I know that we are still a little bit behind, we saw it again today. We see signs of progress in our factory tests. I believe that in the next two or three races, we will come back.”