{"id":24116,"date":"2022-07-24T12:34:44","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T12:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/french-gp-qualifying-pace-a-slap-in-the-face-for-mercedes\/"},"modified":"2022-07-24T12:34:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T12:34:44","slug":"french-gp-qualifying-pace-a-slap-in-the-face-for-mercedes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/french-gp-qualifying-pace-a-slap-in-the-face-for-mercedes\/","title":{"rendered":"French GP qualifying pace a ‘slap in the face’ for Mercedes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Toto Wolff says Mercedes’ pace in qualifying at the French GP was a \u201cslap in the face\u201d at a time when the team thought they were making inroads into the top two.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton and George Russell arrived at the Paul Ricard circuit thinking finally they would be in the fight for the race win.<\/p>\n After two race weekends in which Mercedes took notable steps forward, Saturday’s pace \u2013 or lack thereof \u2013 came as a shock to the team.<\/p>\n Hamilton qualified fourth but was 0.9s down on the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc while Russell lost out to Lando Norris, the former Williams driver P6 and 1.2s off the pace.<\/p>\n Wolff was gutted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were slowly but surely working our way back to the front-runners,\u201d he said as per the BBC.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were good signs in Silverstone and then we went to Austria, a track where we are usually not competitive at all, but we were close.<\/p>\n \u201cThen we brought quite a nice update package to Paul Ricard. The track is smooth: ‘Off we go, let’s hunt them down.’<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we had no performance. Like, no performance.\u201d<\/p>\n Nico Rosberg thinks there are “question marks” at his former team, after falling further behind Ferrari and Red Bull in qualifying.#FrenchGP<\/a> \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 #F1<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/XuklzN30WN<\/p>\n\n