Despite a solid show by George Russell in Q1, both Mercedes drivers failed to live up to the fans’ expectations as the Qualifying session went on. Neither Russell nor Lewis Hamilton could break into the top three of the grid in the most important session of them all, managing only a third-row lockout for their team. While Hamilton secured P5, Russell will start the feature race in Sao Paulo in P8 (two-place grid penalty), with the seven-time world champion trailing the reigning world champion by eight-tenths of a second.
George has received a two-place grid penalty for the São Paulo Grand Prix following a pit lane infringement.
He’ll now start Sunday’s race P8. pic.twitter.com/hOQAVvaKDw
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 3, 2023
Given the strong performances from Q1 and Q2, Toto Wolff accepted that his team made a big mistake by not switching up their strategy. After seeing the performance of both Aston Martin cars and Max Verstappen, Crash.Net quotes Wolff being disappointed to have not opted for a similar strategy.
“I think we weren’t adaptive enough. The Aston Martins just stormed away. Max straight out of the garage with warm tires, also stormed away and those were the quickest cars. We were a second off, or eight tenths off the quickest time, and it shows you what we should have done.”
The sessions before a rain-hit Q3 exemplified how close the competition was among all the cars, with all ten cars in Q2 registering sub-71-second laps. Even Q3 saw close competition, with a margin of around one second between P1 and P8. Given the same, Wolff knows his team missed the trick, while Hamilton could only express his dissatisfaction with the result after the session.
Lewis Hamilton was far from satisfied after securing a P5 finish
Hamilton will start slightly ahead of his teammate on the grid in P5. With there still being hope of an impressive outing, the 38-year-old was not happy with the result, which came because of a short Q3 owing to the storm. The seven-time world champion was all but certain of a higher finish as he looks to set the tone for the 2024 season.
Lewis Hamilton post-qualifying:
“5th is never that great.”
“I did the best I could, hopefully we’ll have a better race.”
“We’re a couple tenths off of the top guys.”
— Mercedes-AMG F1 News (@MercedesNewsUK) November 3, 2023
The Briton admitted to his car feeling slightly slower when compared to the performances of the rest of the grid. He claimed that despite showing signs of decent performance, his car was “a couple of tenths off the top guys.”
Nonetheless, Hamilton mentioned P5 was not the ideal position to be in, as they wanted to be higher up the order. However, he added the result came with the help of the weather, as had the session been dry, the rest of the grid would have overtaken both him and George Russell. Losing out on important time in Sector 3 of the lap, the storm came as a blessing in disguise for the Mercedes cars as neither driver looked confident in being able to make up for the time they were losing in the final sector of the lap.
