Mercedes Expected Three Tenths. Wolff Is Asking Where the Pace Went.

Mercedes brought an upgrade it expected to make the car faster, but qualifying at Sepang left Toto Wolff confronting straight-line losses and an unfamiliar handling problem.

Mercedes expected its latest upgrade package to deliver roughly three tenths of a second, according to Toto Wolff. Instead, Kimi Antonelli qualified fourth and George Russell eighth for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

Antonelli finished 0.501 seconds behind polesitter Max Verstappen, with Russell 0.741 seconds adrift. After Friday’s tire-overheating concerns, Saturday brought a broader question: why was Mercedes losing performance in parts of the lap where it hadn’t expected trouble?

Losing time on the straights and in the corners

Speaking to Sky Sports after qualifying, Wolff identified excessive drag relative to Verstappen’s Red Bull and unexpected low-speed understeer, where the car resists turning into a corner.

He said the team had encountered behavior it hadn’t seen earlier in the season. Sepang’s heat and unusual track surface complicated the diagnosis.

“We expected to be three-tenths [of a second] forwards, and we are four or five backwards.”

That was Wolff’s assessment of the performance shortfall. It did not establish that the new components themselves had made the car slower. He maintained that Mercedes believed in the upgrades and needed to understand what else was affecting the car.

The promise of practice disappeared

Antonelli had topped final practice, with Russell fourth. Mercedes said conditions were relatively similar in qualifying, yet it couldn’t reproduce that competitiveness.

Antonelli also compromised his own session. A deleted Q2 lap forced him to use another fresh set of soft tires, leaving just one new set for Q3.

He believed a second attempt on fresh tires could have put him in contention for the front row, although he didn’t think Verstappen’s pole was within reach.

Race pace remains the next question

Mercedes expects heavy tire degradation to make strategy and tire management central to the race.

Wolff acknowledged that Friday’s long-run pace had been weak. The team hopes subsequent setup changes have helped, even though qualifying offered little reassurance.

Mercedes still has confidence in the package. Sepang has left it searching for the performance it expected to find.