Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris both shouldered the blame for their respective disappointing results in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.
Mercedes were the big winners on Saturday, given how their campaign has gone so far. George Russell went second fastest with Lewis Hamilton just one place behind to finally give Silver Arrows fans something to cheer about this season.
Ferrari and McLaren were also hoping to have reason to be cheerful after qualifying, given their own tepid starts to the 2023 campaign. But their was little joy for either of them to find as they were off the pace again and left themselves with work to do in the race.
Carlos Sainz will start the race fifth with Leclerc two places further back, and the Monegasque knows he deserves no better and was left frustrated with his own performance. "Q1 and Q2 clearly I wasn't on it, I wasn't driving well, I wasn't putting everything together so that was my fault," he admitted.
"Q3 I managed to feel a bit better in the car, quite confident I could put everything together. In the first run in Q3, it's a bit my fault also as when you arrive into Q3 you need to put everything together in whatever laps you do."
Meanwhile, McLaren are still pointless after the first two races of the year and will be desperate to get on the board this weekend. Oscar Piastri had an extra motivation to perform in front of his home crowd, but fell at the first hurdle to set only the 16th fastest time.
Norris got through Q1 unscathed but couldn't manage much else. Alex Albon was 10th quickest in Q2 and the Williams driver was three tenths quicker than the McLaren man, highlighting that the performance is just not there yet in the MCL60.
But Norris knows he has to shoulder some of the blame himself. He said: "I don't want to just settle for a P13 or P12, so it's just a little bit of overdriving, potentially. I'm not quite finding the rhythm that I want and the knowledge of every corner where the limit is exactly, so I wouldn't say I'm probably driving at the level I feel like I should hold myself to.
"But [it's] a tricky car to drive, one that is easy to go over the limit on anyway. And then when you combine that with trying to overdrive a little bit too much, then I made the mistakes like I did today. I am where I deserve to be."
