Toto Wolff has conceded he thought Mercedes would have “a little bit more pace” in qualifying for the F1 season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Wolff saw his drivers qualify third and ninth for Saturday’s race as 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen stormed to pole position.

168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell qualified a superb third, just over 0.3s off V🌟erstappen, while Hamilton struggled for pace through the three qualifying segments.

The seven-time world champion blamed a setup change, focusing more on the race, as to why he underperformed relaꩵtive to Russell.

Speaking to Sky Sports after the session, Wolff said he ♏“h🎃oped for more” in qualifying after a 1-2 finish in second practice on Thursday.

“I think P3 is OK. We thought we had a little bit more pace,” he said. “0.3s off pole. Yesterday it looked better ꦉbut we put the car in a sweet spot for tomor▨row’s race - at least that’s what we hope.

“With P3, P9, it’s so close the gaps. I wouldไ ha🧜ve hoped for more.”

On Hamilt🐻on’s pace specifically, he added: “Just tiny margins🦩.

“You get the tyre i꧟n the optimum window. It’s just a two-tenths difference and then you’re right in the game.”

There were some suggestions after practice that Mercedes were runni💦ng their engines more aggressively in practice hence their headline times in FP2.

However, Wolff refuted that claiܫm, citing setup chan🅷ges.

Difference, turn the engines up early?

“No, I think the setup changes contributed to today’s performance. At the beginning of the qualifying we thought ‘oh, we’ve taken too much performance off’, sacrificed for tomorrow’s race but at the end we got it qu🍷ite OK with George,” he explained.

“T🐼omorrow should be better but we’re🐠 learning about this car.”