Toto Wolff reveals 'something else going on' after rare qualifying failure

Toto Wolff has admitted Mercedes has been left confused by its lack of pace during qualifying at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Brackley-based squad brought a substantial upgrade package to the event as it looked to consolidate its end-of-season push towards double title success.

While Kimi Antonelli was just able to scrape inside the top four, team-mate George Russell had a more difficult time of things in eighth.

The result comes despite Antonelli showing ominous pace in FP3 to lead the pack heading into the qualifying showdown.

“Very difficult to understand,” Wolff told Sky F1. 

“We have been a little bit caught out on Friday with some car behaviour that we didn’t see all year, but then you can say it’s very hot and the tarmac is very different to all the other tracks.

“It looked really good this morning. 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."

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Toto Wolff explains lack of pace

The result is just the second time this year that Mercedes has failed to get a car inside the top three.

When asked ot explained where it was losing performance, Wolff added: “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.

“And then through the low speed, in Turn 2, we are not able to turn the car, there's just too much understeer.

“Overall, it's things we haven't seen all year.

“Something else is going on. Something else is going on, and we have to understand. 

“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.”