28 April 2023 , 16:46
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George Russell did little to inspire confidence of a Mercedes turnaround in Baku this weekend as he admitted after qualifying: "We wouldn't really know what to change."
Russell missed out on Q3 by the narrowest of margins, qualifying in 11th position with team-mate Lewis Hamilton barely scraping through to the final stage. The seven-time world champion was able to capitalise on that to finish fifth in qualifying, but Russell had to settle for the sixth row of the grid after both shared similar struggles with the speed of their Mercedes.
Russell expressed his disappointment over the team radio, saying in his usual reserved style: "Ahh, sugar," after finding out that he had not quite made it to Q3. Speaking after the session, he gave the impression that he could not have managed much more.
He said: "Well, we are just not fast enough this weekend. Obviously I would love to be in Q3 but I was giving it everything. I think right now we wouldn't really know what to change to find the pace we need around this track.
"We will see what we can do tomorrow, I will try hard to try and improve my driving and try to work with the team to see what we can do to come back stronger."
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Mercedes have had various reliability problems and have rarely even come close to matching the pace of the rampant Red Bulls so far this season. Upgrades were planned to improve the pace of the car, but it was today revealed they were not yet ready.
Lewis Hamilton managed to go fifth fastest after almost failing to reach Q3 himself (Getty Images)Team principal Toto Wolff admitted the W14 is a tough machine for the drivers to tame. "I think we have it in a good window – just generally, the car is not stable for the drivers and hasn't got enough load... we just need to do the best that we have out of this package," he declared.
Meanwhile, Hamilton explained how difficult the car is to drive. He said: "We're trying as hard as we can. We've given it absolutely everything out there and it's just timing and getting into the rhythm and really pulling out everything is not easy on this track.
"Everyone's working as hard as they can so we haven't had an upgrade this weekend, but we are working towards one that will hopefully put us a little closer to the battle ahead. The car is not the easiest one to drive but I'm happy to be on the third row hopefully tomorrow we can have a better battle."