'The Mercedes W08 is a diva!'
Toto Wolff has described the Mercedes W08 as a 'diva to get into the right window' after a frustrating qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix left it behind Ferrari and with Lewis Hamilton down in 14th position.
The former world champion suffered for scruffy early laps during Q2 when his final run was scuppered by Stoffel Vandoorne crashing ahead of him, consigning him to 14th on the timesheets. This will become 13th on the grid once penalties ahead are applied.
Though Valtteri Bottas spared some blushes by qualifying third - just a tenth off pole position - it nonetheless came on a weekend where Mercedes has struggled to find the sweet spot of the W08, in much the same way it suffered during the Russian Grand Prix.
It is a situation that has baffled Mercedes F1 boss Wolff, though he admits openly that it is down to the W08 having a smaller operating window than the Ferrari SF70H even if it is arguably the faster car when it does hit the sweet spot.
"You can say there is a certain DNA in the car and I think we have proved that our car can go very quick in qualifying and the race, but it seems to be more of a diva to get it into the right window," he said.
"Probably it is marginal differences that make it drop out of the window, we just need to get on top of this and we have a great team that has shown in the past that its strength is in analysing the data and finding out how to put it on the track on Friday and then develop it over the weekend.
"This is one of the outcomes we've had in the past, we've had it in Singapore for different reasons but this is the second weekend that comes into my mind after three years or four years where we have struggled really bad from the get go and from FP2 with the setup."
Despite this, Wolff is encouraged to have seen Bottas turn things around, ending qualifying almost on a par with Ferrari having begun it several tenths off. However, he feels Ferrari has more performance than it showed.
"We have seen Lewis perform really well in Monaco and outperform many others, so I don't know what happened today. The longer qualifying took, the better somehow the car worked for Valtteri.
"Whether it was finding out how it drives or just getting more laps under his belt, but in the debrief the two drivers described the same characteristics of the car and Valtteri felt it was very difficult as well.
"I think Vettel made some mistakes in his lap, and I don't think we've seen the Ricciardo lap. I wouldn't say the pace we had today was close to Ferrari, I think they could have gone faster.
