Wolff says Red Bull may have taken a step backwards

Toto Wolff is delighted that Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in Friday night's qualifying session for the sprint race of the British Grand Prix. Red Bull Racing were trumped, something many will not have expected after the first free practice.

Mercedes disappointed in terms of times in the first practice session of the Grand Prix weekend, but in qualifying the German formation was exactly where it needed to be. Hamilton finished first, while teammate Valtteri Bottas also has an excellent starting position with a third place.

In front of the cameras of the German arm of Sky sports, Wolff laughed: "The empire strikes back," the Mercedes team boss refers to Star Wars. In this case, the Brackley-based team is the 'bad guy' taking revenge. "This is only qualifying, but maybe we've managed to unlock something".

Mercedes focused on long runs

The 49-year-old Austrian goes on to argue that Mercedes focused very much in FP1 on the set-up for Sunday's Grand Prix and that Red Bull may have taken a step back in his opinion. It was Max Verstappen who complained about a lot of understeer in the RB16B, so something needs to be done about that this weekend.