Mercedes: 'There isn't anything obvious in their setups to explain it'

All weekend it looked like Mercedes would not be the big favourites in Monaco, but during qualifying Lewis Hamilton failed badly. The world champion has already indicated that he wants to have a firm word with the engineers to find out how this could have happened. They don't have an answer to that yet.

Tyres not on temperature

This is evident from the words of Andrew Shovlin in the Mercedes press release. Shovlin praises Valtteri Bottas for getting everything out of his car, but both he and Hamilton had problems during qualifying. They couldn't get their tyres up to the right working temperature.

"Lewis had a more difficult time and was unable to build tyre temperature as well as Valtteri. We'll have to look at that as there isn't anything obvious in their setups to explain it."

Shovlin believes they will be in a better position during the race. Overtaking remains difficult, but he believes tyre wear will play a role on Sunday and Mercedes have proved they have that sort of thing this year.