Mercedes headed into qualifying at Sepang expecting its major upgrade package to confirm the progress seen in practice. Instead, the Silver Arrows stumbled back into a familiar problem, leaving Toto Wolff scratching his head after a session that turned a promising morning into a puzzling Saturday afternoon.
Kimi Antonelli had topped FP3 and appeared to have unlocked more performance from the upgraded W17, but qualifying told a very different story.
The championship leader managed fourth fastest and will start third thanks to Isack Hadjar’s penalty, while George Russell could only qualify eighth.
For Wolff, the sudden reversal was difficult to explain.
‘Very difficult to understand’
“Very difficult to understand,” Wolff told Sky Sports after qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
“We have been a little bit caught out on Friday with some car behavior that we didn't see earlier. But then you can say it's very hot, and the tarmac is very different from all the tracks.
“We looked really good in the morning. You know, we seemed to have, at least with Kimi, made a step in understanding. And then qualifying was a little bit back to what we saw before, just no performance.”
The deficit was particularly revealing because Mercedes had arrived with an extensive upgrade package and genuine expectations of taking another step forward. Instead, Verstappen took pole for Red Bull, with Lewis Hamilton second for Ferrari, while Mercedes found itself outside the front row fight.
And it was not simply a case of losing time through the corners.
“It looks like we are very draggy, because it's the first time that we're losing a lot of time on the straights, especially to Max,” Wolff said.
“And then through the low speed, at Turn 2, we're not able to turn the car. There's just too much understeer. So, overall, things we haven't seen earlier.”
Mercedes facing a data hunt
Suggestions that rivals had deliberately hidden their pace in FP3 did little to satisfy Wolff. The Mercedes boss instead pointed the finger firmly at an issue within his own operation.
“Something else is going on, and we have to understand,” he stated.
“This is now working through the data and putting our heads together, because we still believe that the upgrade works. We just need to understand why not here.
“You're expecting three tenths to kick in, and it looks like three or four or five tenths backwards. This is the first time we have missed out on the top three by quite a chunk. But I guess we will find a solution.”
The race offers Mercedes another opportunity to make sense of the mystery, although Wolff was hardly promising a Sunday recovery.
2026 Bahrain Grand Prix - Qualifying results“You know, I'm never positive,” Wolff said. “Even if we had put it on the pole by five tenths, I wouldn't have been exuberant for tomorrow.
“I don't know what to expect tomorrow from the race with the heat. It could be better; it could be worse. This is now about understanding what the car is doing.”
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