Mercedes has “big question mark” after Bahrain GP F1 car upgrade letdown

The Mercedes Formula 1 team has been left with a “big question mark” over whether its long-awaited substantial upgrade has worked after a disappointing qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

F1 championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli qualified fourth while George Russell could only manage a lowly eighth - though both drivers will move up one place on the grid thanks to Isack Hadjar’s penalty - as Mercedes unusually struggled for pace over a single lap in Malaysia. 

Mercedes brought its first significant upgrade to its W17, which has been the class of the field so far in 2026, since the Canadian Grand Prix back in May in the hope it would further cement its benchmark status. 

But Mercedes’ lack of performance in qualifying has left the German manufacturer scratching its heads and confused, with team principal Toto Wolff admitting it is facing problems it has not seen all season. 

“You're expecting 0.3s gain to kick in and it looks like 0.3s or 0.4s or 0.5s backwards,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1. “[It’s the] first time we miss out on the top three and by quite a chunk, so... Odd. But I guess we will find a solution.”

When asked if Mercedes has found it difficult to extract the full potential from its upgrade, Russell replied: "That is the big question mark. If you could have done a direct back-to-back it would have been great to know, but that's the challenge of this sport.

"If I put the upgrade package on last week, even if it was worse, we probably still would have been on pole and we'd have been saying it was fantastic. And equally, if we had the old car here, maybe the result would have been even worse. 
 
"So that's the challenge. As a team we have yet to have, let's say, a bad race this whole season and this was clearly a very bad qualifying for us.”

The Briton added: “All the numbers say it's an improvement, but obviously it's a sport that we need to follow the laptimes and not what the numbers say. 

“So the numbers look absolutely fine and in line with expectations, but the result wasn't.”

Mercedes had been bracing for a tougher weekend at Sepang - a track that does not play to the W17’s strengths. 

The Silver Arrows’ 2026 challenger has also struggled with the track’s extremely rough asphalt surface, which could explain some of team’s competitive issues, but it does not provide a full answer. 

“The whole year whenever we went on tracks like this with very open tarmac, we've always struggled,” Antonelli explained. 

“So is it because of the tarmac and because it's so hot out there? Or is it because maybe we're missing something with the new package? So it's really hard to understand.

“But we try to do our best and probably Singapore will give us a better read on the package.”