Wolff surprised by gap to Ferrari and Red Bull: 'Worse than hoped for'

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell finished in fifth and sixth positions in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix. The difference with Zandvoort last week is big, where the Mercedes looked fast all weekend. At Monza, the team must reckon with a big gap towards the top teams, but Toto Wolff hopes to come back stronger on Sunday.

"Overall, that session was probably a little worse than we had hoped for - not in terms of our final positions, which were probably our maximum today, but with respect to the gap to the front of the grid," Wolff began in Mercedes' press release. The gap between Hamilton and Leclerc's pole time was more than one second.

"Ferrari did an awesome job here in qualifying. I guess the positive point is that George will start from P2 - even though he was complaining of poor grip from the tyres," The Briton moves up a few places as Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez will all incur grid penalties on Sunday.

Wolff hopes for better race pace

"Lewis obviously goes to the back row with his engine penalty, so we will need a strong recovery tomorrow if we hope to get to the points," Wolff stressed that the team had counted on a lesser weekend, as the W13 is particularly strong on the twisty tracks. Nevertheless, the Mercedes team boss hopes the race pace will be better than the qualifying pace, as it has been all season.