Toto Wolff claimed his drivers' tyre preparation getting compromised by Alex Albon’s fan-addled Williams explained Mercedes’ poor 2024 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying, with its latest floor changes not blamed.
After George Russell had led FP3 in Baku and Lewis Hamilton had been second and third in the two opening practice sessions on Friday, the two Silver Arrows ended up qualifying fifth and seventh – with the younger Briton ahead.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc scored a fourth consecutive Baku pole ahead of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz third in the other SF-24.
Wolff said Mercedes’ result was “actually disappointing” and believes, had his drivers been able to maintain their tyre temperature windows on their final outlaps they might have been able to trouble the leaders.
Each had to slow down late on waiting for Albon’s incident at the pit exit to clear ahead in case of yellow flags when they arrived at Turn 1, with Williams handed a fine for the incident.
“This is a Leclerc track – and Ferrari,” Wolff told Sky Germany. “So, you have to give them credit for being good here. But I think we could have been second or third, probably third. It was so close.
“With Albon, the way [the Williams] got stuck at the exit, it just knocked our tyre temperature down and that's why the first sector was so bad.”
Speaking to reporters including Autosport after climbing from his W15 in the Baku paddock on Saturday, Hamilton was frustrated to have again gone from looking strong in practice to slipping down the order in qualifying.
“Every Saturday, it’s the same – so, not really surprising,” said the seven-time world champion.
“FP1 and FP2 – car felt amazing. I was really on it, literally, from lap one. Sometimes we wonder when you get to a Saturday whether the others were heavier on P1 and P2.
“It felt great yesterday and then as soon as we started today, I barely changed anything to the car because I didn’t want to mess anything up, and the tyres wouldn’t work. All day, they’ve not worked.
“I think the last lap, like the last sector, the tyres just started to work. But we’d missed it.”
In Baku, Mercedes has not run the problematic floor it introduced in Belgium and raced at Zandvoort and Monza, but Hamilton reckoned his feelings with the car this weekend in qualifying were not explained by running the older specification.
“They’re very similar – the new one and the old one,” he said. “I think it was a good test for us to go back.
“We won on this floor before. It’s a bit older, so it’s a little bit heavier compared to a new floor.
“[But] we haven’t back-to-backed it this weekend, so it’s difficult to say whether that was the problem because we’re in the same position as the last race.”
Russell, however, was firmer in his belief the Baku result showed “validation that is not the floor that's making the difference”.
“It was a team decision [not to run the new floor at all in Baku],” he said.
“We were substantially off the pace in the race [for the last two events] but clearly there was some performance in the car in qualifying the last two races,” Russell concluded, having qualified fourth at Zandvoort and third at Monza.
Watch: What went wrong for Norris? And other Baku Qualifying drama - F1 Azerbaijan GP Saturday Update
