Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff has admitted there is “no ex♛cuse” for his team’s underwhelming performance in qualifying at the Australian Grand Pജrix.

For the third weekend in a row, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell was the fastest Mercedes driver in qualifying but he could only take seventh as he ended up over seven tenths of a second adrift of Red Bull’s 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen.

Meanwhile, teammate168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q2 in a lowly🅰 11th as the seven-time world champion suffered his worst qualifying performance in Melbourne since 2010.

Mercedes had found encouraging performance gains in final practice on Saturday morning, with Hamiltoꦚn getting within a tenth of the fastest time, only for the team’s competitiveness to dramatically drop away i𓆉n qualifying.

"It's especially underwhelming because we were within a tenth in FP3,” Mercedes team principal W𓄧olff told Sky.

“The conditions were a🦩 little bit different but there is no excuse. We have a car that's dif𒁃ficult and you can be narrowly in or out of the window.

"As much as I'm annoyed myself about 𝄹saying this for a long time, we just need to continue working on it.

“It's not becau꧑se of a lack of 🎐trying but we are where we are and it's not good enough.”

While Wolff conceded it is an “illusion” to think Mercedes can cl♓ose the gap to Red Bull in the short-term, he still believes the team can turn things around with their W15 car.

"It's an illusion to get closer to Red Bull in♛ the short-te📖rm, but I still have to believe there is more in this car,” Wolff added.

"This morning it was not a ba༺d car, but it's so tricky to go in and out of 𝐆the performance window and we have to continue to work on it.”