Mercedes expected more from qualifying
Mercedes AMG has improved their form noticeably since the beginning of the season, and has been the only manufacturer to win races, apart from BMW.
The Stuttgart contingent arrives in Zandvoort sporting the youngest ever pole sitter and race winner in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with Pascal Wehrlein, the new reserve driver for the Mercedes AMG F1 Team
But another important debut here is the aero package sported in Christian Vietoris’ car. The German, now second in the drivers’ standings, was the only one to get the new parts, although his day was far from perfect, qualifying in eighteenth place: “I was having problems with the steering for the whole of qualifying. It had nothing to do with the fact that it’s a new car. The servo seems to have packed up, and that strongly affected my runs. Consequently, I wasn’t able to post a proper lap in qualifying. That was a real shame.”
Wehrlein had a difficult morning during free practice, but his pace improved in qualifying. His time in the Q2 would have been enough for pole, but things didn’t come together at the right time. The young German explained: “The result is a bit disappointing. We had some problems in free practice, so I was rather surprised that I was so fast in Q1 and Q2. We just couldn’t get it together in Q3, but seventh on the grid isn’t too bad when you consider where we were in free practice this morning. After Q2, I had naturally set my sights higher, but I was having difficulty with the tyres in the final sector. We’ll have to find the reason.“
Gary Paffett had a better day than what he could have initially expected, but 11th on the grid wasn’t enough for the Briton: I’m slightly disappointed, but in general, I’m feeling happier than in recent races. We are better than we had expected. The car was really hard to drive this morning in practice, but the team did a great job before qualifying. The C-Coupé was nice to drive and predictable, which it wasn’t this morning, but I made a few small mistakes.”
Robert Wickens, who had been one of Mercedes’ top fighting men in recent races, wasn’t able to make the cut for Q2, qualifying in 21st place. The Canadian was baffled: “I don’t know what happened. Everything felt the same as in free practice and I was competitive. I was really happy with my lap, but that’s meaningless in the end when you qualify 21st.”
Wolfgang Schattling, Head of Motorsport and Marketing Communications, wasn’t happy with the day’s outcome, but was still hopeful for the race: “It was not a perfect qualifying. Pascal could have achieved much more than seventh position on the grid today. There may have been a technical problem with a wheel nut. He would have been in pole position with his time from Q2. Unfortunately, it did not work out. The Zandvoort track has not always well suited us. It demands a lot of downforce and is really hard on tyres. But let’s wait and see how the race develops.”
Mercedes has little to fight for this season, but the pairing formed by Chris Vietoris and Paul Di Resta could give the manufacturer a second position in the Teams’ championship.
