Lewis Hamilton was unable to explain his Mercedes team’s lack of pace in qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix after failing to make it into the top 10.
The seven-time champion qualified 11th in Melbourne with team-mate George Russell seventh – Hamilton has now been out-paced at all three races so far this year.
Hamilton said he had been “optimistic” of a strong showing after being fourth fastest in final practice, less than 0.1 seconds off the pace-setting Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.
But after qualifying he said: “I don’t know if it’s the wind picking up – it picked up quite a bit, same as yesterday – and then the car is just so much more on a knife edge. That’s it.”
Hamilton has qualified ninth, eighth and 11th so far this year, with Russell third at the first race in Bahrain and seventh in Saudi Arabia and Melbourne.
“It’s just a flat feeling,” Hamilton said. “It’s not great.
“[I’m] less consistent than George. He is doing a better job with the car. Three qualifyings in a row he has out-qualified me. He’s just seems to get on a lot better than I do.
“Just trying to keep my head above water and continue to realise it could be way worse.”
Mercedes entered the season believing that they had a car with which they could make progress after two seasons struggling with an aerodynamic concept different from the rest of the field.
But the team have discovered that the car lacks pace in high-speed corners – and that it does not generate the downforce on track that its simulations suggest it should.
The team are essentially still failing to understand the airflow under the car, where ground-effect ‘venturi’ tunnels develop most of the downforce.
Hamilton said: “It’s three years in a row, similar feeling. Then there’s these spikes of ‘it could be good’ like this morning. Then it disappears.
“If we can find a way of [keeping] that goodness in the car, making it more consistent and holding onto that, maybe we can be more competitive. There’s lots of work we need to do but everyone’s working as hard as they can.”
Russell was optimistic Mercedes would be more competitive in the race.
“It’s so tight out there between the top five teams bar Red Bull,” he said. “I definitely think we are going to have a better race car than qualifying car, but we know where we need to improve and that’s the high-speed corners and this circuit there are quite a few around here.
“But all to play for. The fight is on, with the Ferraris and McLarens in touching distance.
“So I think we could be seeing a two-stop race potentially, not one single driver has used the hard [tyre] and everyone will be using it tomorrow so there are a lot of unknowns for everyone.”
The battle at the front
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen heads into the race as a strong favourite for a third consecutive victory to follow his third consecutive pole.
Ferrari had looked the form team before qualifying, to the extent that McLaren’s Lando Norris – who starts third on the grid following a three-place grid penalty for impeding for Red Bull’s Sergio Perez – predicted either Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz would be on pole after Friday practice.
But Verstappen managed to work with his engineers to tune the car and by the final part of qualifying he was back in his usual untouchable form.
The star performance of the session, though, was arguably from Sainz, who was next best after Verstappen just 15 days after having surgery in Saudi Arabia after being diagnosed with appendicitis.
He said that the effects of the operation created an unusual feeling when he was driving the car, exactly as Williams driver Alex Albon – who had a similar experience in 2022 – had warned him.
“It’s exactly what Alex told me before jumping in the car,” Sainz said. “He said when he got his appendix removed, just with the G-Force, everything in the inside just feels like it’s moving more than normal and you need some confidence to brace the core and the body as you used to do before.
“But you get used to it. There is no pain. There is nothing to worry about. It’s just a weird feeling that you have to get used to while driving, especially these circuits.
“We’re pulling 5 or 6 Gs in some of the brakings and some of the corners. So yeah, obviously, everything is moving. But I can deal with it, and I can adapt to it also.”
Ferrari set competitive times on the race-simulation runs in second practice and Sainz said he was hopeful he might be able to challenge Verstappen in the race.
There are, however, concerns about tyre life as a result of Pirelli deploying its three softest compound options this weekend.
“First of all, it’s high degradation on the medium compound,” said Sainz. “The hard hasn’t been touched yet by anyone, so there’s a lot of unknowns.
“The biggest thing we saw is that it’s very easy to grain [tear the surface of] the medium tyre. So being in traffic behind the Red Bull might not be the best for that tyre.
“And then let’s see how the hard behaves, if the hard is a good tyre or not. The race pace has been good enough to make me believe that if I’m feeling good tomorrow, I can give it a run for the win.
“If not, we will have to keep learning and keep seeing how we can keep getting closer to Max.”
Norris starts ahead of Leclerc after the other Ferrari driver lost confidence in his car behaviour in qualifying, but McLaren believe that Red Bull and Ferrari will probably be too quick for them to challenge in the race.