Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Mercedes was lacking straight-line speed compared ♑to Formula 1 rivals Ferrari during qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

Having bounced back from a disappointing performance at the season-opener in Melbourne, Ferrari continued to domina💟te proceedings in Bahrain as Charles Leclerc headed a Scuderia front-row lock-out. 

Mercedes had struggled to match Ferrari’s pace all weekend and following the conclusion of qualifying, Wolff 🅘admitted the reigning world champions are losing out on the straights. 

“We are lacking in straight-line speed at the moment,” Wolff told S🎃ky Sports.

“Whether this is drag or poℱwer, we need to analyse. Obviously this is not great for the race eitheཧr, overtaking will be an option tomorrow but you need a fast car on the straights.” 

Wolff reveaꦰled Mercedes began its analysis into the appare💛nt deficit while qualifying was still going on. 

“For sure it’s a combination of th🌼e two and that post-mortem started miꦍd-qualifying when we realised that we are lacking the speed and we take the analysis from there,” Wolff added. 

Mercedes had trailed Ferrari by a large margin for much of the weekend but Lewis Hamilton managed to close to within 0.324s of Leclerc’s pole time in Q3, with the Briton less than a tenth beಞhind Sebastian Vettel in third. 

Asked if the final gap was closer than expected, Wolff replied: “No I think it was whꦆat we expected after the practice sessions. 

“It’s a bit of a disappointment because it’s a gap and we need to analyse where that comes from. On long runs we were doing OK, I th🌜ink that looked good.”