Mercedes once again rued Ferrari’s engine advantage after settling for the second row in Japanese Grand Prix qualifying.
After leading the way on Friday, sunny but breezy conditions at Suzuka brought a new challenge and a new order as Sebastian Vettel led a Scuderia 1-2.
For Lewis Hamilton, it was the ‘jet-mode’, as he called it in Sochi, that again made the difference even if his own performance was nothing special.
“The car was fine,” he said. “They obviously turn up and go to another level which we can’t really compete with power-wise.
“But the car was feeling good. Q2 run one was really solid, the second run was not so great and the next two were so-so.”
On the different conditions, he explained: “It’s super-gusty out there, so just picking your point and where you place the car makes it a little bit trickier.
“The Ferraris I think have a faster car, but I think we’ve got a solid car [too].
“We’re hopefully going to be able to give them a fight for the money but they’re very quick on the straights as I say.”
So far this weekend, it has been Valtteri Bottas with the faster Mercedes and so it proved in qualifying albeit with only 0.009s between them.
The Finn was also only 0.04s behind Charles Leclerc in second and echoed his teammate on Ferrari’s qualifying speed.
“We seemed quite strong, but we always knew Ferrari maybe might have something in reserve to turn things up, especially in Q3 they were untouchable really,” he said.
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“Again on the straight lines, they’re quicker, through the corners we are good. We have the new package here with the new aero bits and it definitely felt better than before, but still not quite enough.”
As for leading Hamilton, Bottas added: “It’s always good to be ahead of the teammate. It felt like I got everything out of the car so that’s a good feeling.
“We did the maximum today and we’ll see if we can get it [ the Constructors’ Championship] today and if not we’ll try again next time.”
To achieve that Mercedes must outscore Ferrari but at least 14 points.