11/05/2019
NEWS STORY
Despite Mercedes fourth front row lock-out of the season, Toto Wolff was left frustrated by the battery charging issue that compromised Lewis Hamilton's Q3 performance.
While delighted, and somewhat surprised, by the 0.8s advantage Valtteri Bottas enjoyed over the Ferraris in qualifying, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was not so happy with the issue that left Lewis Hamilton 0.6 adrift of his teammate.
"It was a bit of an unfortunate session for Lewis," a dejected Wolff told Sky Sports in the moments after the end of the session, "because we couldn't charge the battery properly because he pitted early in Q2, and therefore his first run in Q3 was a bit compromised with the traffic.
"He started on the wrong foot," he added, "but Valtteri did a good job, and I guess deserves to be on pole."
"The last couple of laps in Q3 particularly just weren't strong," said Hamilton. "I had to go out early, because I had come in too early and I had a low battery pack and so I had to go out first, ahead of everyone and ultimately it just wasn't a good enough job."
"Lewis was catching a bit more traffic which made it hard to get a proper feel for the car and to understand how to manage the out lap," explained trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin. "He abandoned his final run in the second session due to a yellow flag at Turn 12, which meant the battery pack was not charged ready for the final session.
"We therefore put him out on track first so he could manage his own out lap, but it meant we caught a number of the cars who left late. By the final run, it seemed that the track had lost a bit of pace and there was some gravel down so few cars were able to improve."