After trying virtually sure to clinch pole place in Jeddah, Verstappen’s qualifying ended prematurely after struggling a mechanical driveshaft failure in Q2.
This implies Verstappen will begin fifteenth on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Given Verstappen and Crimson Bull’s vital margin over the remainder of the sector, a race win is not solely out of the query tomorrow.
Chatting with Sky Sports activities F1 after qualifying, Wolff joked that Crimson Bull did it deliberately to boost the present.
“Possibly they did it on function to win from the again,” joked Wolff.
Karun Chandhok replied: “A deal from Stefano (F1 CEO Domenicali) to placed on a great present perhaps?”
Wolff added: “Precisely.”
When it comes to Mercedes’ qualifying show, fortunes have been blended with George Russell qualifying fourth, whereas Lewis Hamilton solely managed eighth.
Assessing their efficiency, Wolff added: “I believe that is the place we anticipated to be. We all know we now have the deficits that we now have and I believe we’re within the ballpark – two tenths up, two tenths down, whether or not it is simply third or sixth, no matter, we now have to take the massive step forward in future races.
Hamilton struggled for tempo and Wolff admitted Mercedes wanted to deal with ‘setup variations’
“We’ve to search out out. It seemed a bit of cheesy in sector one,” he defined. “The climate by no means got here collectively and we now have to see what variations in setup we had.
Despite the fact that Mercedes are struggling from the highs of 2014-2020, Russell was completely satisfied together with his personal efficiency in Jeddah.
“I might have taken that,” Russell stated Sky. “Actually completely satisfied, actually enjoyable to drive on this observe.
“The automotive felt good, clearly we all know we’re a bit missing in general downforce however that is greater than we may have hoped for given all of the circumstances and finally that is all we are able to do once we’re on the observe, so actually excited.” with that.”
