Mercedes failed to live up to the promise they had shown through Friday practice, when George Russell was consistently close to the top of the times and actually ended the day fastest after the team introduced upgrades to their car.
Before qualifying, team boss Toto Wolff had cautioned against expecting too much of the team, saying: “We need to be also honest with ourselves: it’s not like that we have brought a ground-breaking solution.”
And he was proved right, as both drivers struggled throughout the session.
Russell in fact failed even to make it into the final part of qualifying and ended up 12th, saying to the team: “I don’t think that was good enough. I just didn’t have the confidence in the car today.”
Hamilton fared better. He had a tricky first session and was on the verge of being knocked out at the first hurdle until a strong lap right at the end of it, but he was Mercedes’ strongest performer after that.
But even so, he was unable to get close to the dominant forces of Ferrari and Red Bull, and was even beaten by former team-mate Valtteri Bottas in the Alfa Romeo by 0.15secs.
Team principal Toto Wolff said a change to the car overnight had forced a recurrence of the problems with “porpoising” – a high frequency aerodynamic bouncing – which have afflicted Mercedes all year.
“Yesterday we had a glimpse of the performance that is in the car if we can get it in the right spots,” Wolff said. “The main thing was managing the porpoising.
“That was good yesterday and then we tried something that didn’t seem like a big change and affected the car badly and went all the way back.
“In the end in qualifying, the drivers suffered again with the bouncing and the bouncing has such an effect on the braking zones and what the tyres are doing. The learning is exponential but exponentially tough at the moment and we would have hoped for better today.”
Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda were seventh and ninth, split by McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll impressing by making it into the top 10.
