Mercedes has "no excuses" for its poor performance in Australian Grand Prix qualifying, especially after a strong final practice, Toto Wolff has declared.
In FP3, Lewis Hamilton was within a tenth of pace-setter Charles Leclerc with George Russell also close behind, giving hope Mercedes could fight for pole at Albert Park.
However, in qualifying, Hamilton was dumped out in Q2 for his worst Melbourne start since 2010 in 11th as Russell secured seventh behind the Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren cars, and less than a tenth clear of RB's Yuki Tsunoda.
Reflecting on the result, a year after Mercedes secured a two-three result in qualifying, labelled it "not good enough" but added that it wasn't through a lack of effort.
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'No excuses'
"It is underwhelming because we were within a tenth [of the pace] in FP3," Wolff told Sky Sports F1.
"The conditions were a little bit different, but there is no excuse, we have a car that is difficult, and you can be narrowly in or out of the window.
"As much as I am annoyed myself at saying this for a long time, we will just continue working on it and trying to get better.
"It is not because a lack of trying that we are where we are, but it is not good enough.
"It is the whole interaction of aerodynamics, mechanics and the tyres. It is not a single topic [that is wrong], but we've just got to keep our heads down and push through this.
"It is an illusion to [get] closer to Red Bull in the short-term, but I still have to believe that there is more in this car - and you see the performance in FP3, that is not a bad car.
"But it is tricky to be out of the performance window, so we're just going to continue to work on it."
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