Bahrain: Formula 1’s first qualifying session began at the Sakhir Grand Prix and it was a qualification that Mercedes would definitely like to forget as their drivers qualified P6 and P7 on the gird and will need a good result to kickstart their journey on Sunday.
There were indications that it wasn’t gonna go well as they would have liked in preseason testing at Bahrain but a strong FP3 definitely ignited hopes for the German team in Q3 all hopes were dashed as they finished behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso.
Has the concept gone wrong for the Germans?
With the squad having pushed on with the same car concept as last year, while many rivals had gone down the Red Bull downwash solution, Wolff said it was time to admit his outfit had got it wrong.
Having launched its new W14 with the belief it could eventually be made into a winner, Wolff said his tune had now changed and it was time to pursue other options.
So much so that both of their drivers complained about certain things at pre-season testing w
Toto Wolff the Team Principal added “We gave it our best shot all over the winter, and now we just need to all regroup and sit down with the engineers, who are totally not dogmatic about anything.
He further added “There are no holy cows and we need to decide what is the development direction that we want to pursue, in order to be competitive to win races”It’s not only like last year, where you are scoring many podiums and eventually you get there. I’m sure we can win races this season. But it’s really the mid and long term that we need to look at, and which decisions we need to take.”
He also further stressed that it was just the first qualifying and there are 22 more so he is confident that the team will definitely get quick solutions but as we saw in the last season the solutions arrived a bit late for them.
Qualification
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez of Red Bull locked the front row by getting a 1-2 in qualifying and with Ferrari in the 2nd-row lockout with Charles Leclerc P3 and Carlos Sainz P4 and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso P5 but it was a disappointing qualifying for Mclaren with their rookie Oscar Piastri out in Q1 and Lando Norris out in Q2.
