Press release
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marzo 09, 2024 - mercedes amg motorsport
2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Friday
Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale.
Frustrating qualifying session leaves team starting on fourth row for Saturday's race
- George Russell qualified seventh and Lewis Hamilton eighth for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
- After working hard overnight, both drivers were happier with the balance of the W15 in FP3 after several set-up changes.
- Qualifying proved a different story though, with lap time difficult time to find particularly in the first sector.
- Both drivers progressed through to Q3, although Lewis was perilously close to being knocked out in Q2, making it through by just 0.028s.
- George and Lewis set their first times in Q3 on the used Soft tyre, with George finding some good gains. However, on his final run on a new set of the same compound, he lost the rear of the car and had to abandon his lap.
- Lewis was able to improve on his final effort meanwhile, but his lap was only good enough for P8.
- The team's focus now switches to Saturday's 50-lap Grand Prix, with the aim of moving forwards.
- Imagery of the day is available on our media site. All imagery is rights-free for editorial use.
| Driver | FP3 | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | |||
| George Russell | P4 | 8 Laps 1:28.749 | P6 Medium, Soft | 9 Laps 1:28.448 | P5 Soft, Soft, Soft | 5 Laps 1:28.316 | P7 Soft, Soft |
| Lewis Hamilton | P9 | 9 Laps 1:28.994 | P11 Medium, Soft | 9 Laps 1:28.606 | P10 Soft, Soft, Soft | 6 Laps 1:28.460 | P8 Soft, Soft |
George Russell
Unfortunately I was unable to complete my last lap on the new tyres. I made a mistake, which is on me, and that was that. My quickest lap therefore was on the used tyres. It was a strong one but if I had finished my final effort, I think we may have been fighting for P4 or even higher.
It is so tight out there and we saw last week that if you don't get everything together, then you can lose several positions. We are still learning about this car; we were P1 and P2 in practice in Bahrain and P2 here again yesterday. We slipped back today but there is potential there. It's a long season so we will be looking to understand more about the platform we have and deliver more consistently.
I am confident that we've got good race pace for tomorrow. We look quick in a straight-line, which is a bonus. It's tricky to follow here though and it should be a simple one-stop with the degradation. We need to make a good start and see what we can do from there.
Lewis Hamilton
It was a very difficult day today. I was much happier in FP3, and the car was feeling much better than on Thursday. It was a real improvement, and I had a lot more confidence in the car. Unfortunately in qualifying, it felt similar to yesterday and I didn't have the stability from the car that I needed. It was a struggle, and we were losing out particularly in the high-speed first sector.
Our race pace is typically better than our qualifying pace. We have also been quick in a straight-line so hopefully that helps us. It will be difficult, but we will be giving it everything we've got to progress forward tomorrow. If we can do so, that would be great.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
That was a very annoying qualifying session! We've got a quick car, but it is on a knife's edge. The drivers are struggling to squeeze out the lap consistently. George was on his way to a strong lap and could have been fighting for spots on the second row. Unfortunately he lost the rear of the car. Lewis meanwhile never had the feedback from the car that he wanted, and that meant he couldn't go faster.
I think the race pace will be very close between ourselves, the Ferraris, and the McLarens. Our target is to try to be ahead of them tomorrow, but we know overtaking isn't easy here. Last week, we thought we had a car that was quicker in race trim, but we were unable to show that. Hopefully we will have a better evening here in Jeddah. We will do our best and see what we can deliver.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
We're disappointed to line up P7 and P8. That is particularly true considering the gap to pole position, but we'll have to find a way to make it work for us tomorrow in the race. Our performance in the high-speed corners wasn't good enough; we improved the car slightly overnight, but we'll need to make this better ahead of Suzuka and Melbourne.
We don't really know where everyone will stack up on long run pace tomorrow. Verstappen looked clear of the field, but it's quite tight behind and not many cars did runs that were long enough to get a clear read on degradation. It's normally an incident filled race here so opportunities may come to us tomorrow. We will look to take advantage of those but today just wasn't good enough.
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