Mercedes driver George Russell admitted that he was very much on the back foot this weekend, and that he simply didn't have the right feel to extract the best out of the W14 in today's qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring.
Russell admitted that he had to get a better understanding about what was going on this weekend after failing to make the cut at the end of the second round, leaving him starting Sunday's race from 11th on the grid.
"Just not quick enough today," he admitted to the media in the paddock in Spielberg after the end of the session. "I think from the first laps in practice I just hadn't got the right feel with the car."
Russell explained that the format of the sprint weekend - with just a single hour of practice before jumping straight into qualifying and then parc ferme conditions for the sprint day and into Sunday - was making it hard for him.
"It's difficult when you go to sprint race weekend, you don't have a lot of time to make some changes," he said. "But yeah, we need to understand what's going on at the moment. We're struggling a bit.
"Obviously P11 is not the best starting position but we've had some good results from further down the field so far this year, so all is not lost," he pointed out.
"I'm hopeful we can fight our way back during the race," he added. "Let's see what we can do overnight into tomorrow. "The tyre deg looked pretty bad in practice, so probably looking at two-stop race."
His team mate Lewis Hamilton fared better in qualifying and will start from fifth on Saturday, but was also sounding downbeat by the team's performance so far in Austria.
"Today was a really tough session but we got through it," he said. "Not an easy circuit. Our car in general in the past has never really suited this circuit and it shows that again today.
“We were just trying to focus on getting around as quickly as we can today," he said. “I think our race pace was possibly around third-fastest times.
"I think the Red Bulls and the Ferraris are quicker, maybe the Aston Martins, so maybe we’re fourth. Not quite sure exactly.
“It’s not P1,” he said of his starting spot. “[But] I’ll take it and I’ll try to work with it for tomorrow. “Last year I started further back and it was a tough race, so I’m hoping we can have a better race on Sunday."
Before that there is the sprint showdown and race on Saturday giving Hamilton and Russell a clean slate to try and do better on, although Hamilton dismissed suggestions that tomorrow would be a case of damage control for the team.
“We’re not going to have damage limitation because we haven’t even qualified for it yet,” he insisted. “We’re just going to try and see if we can do better in sprint qualifying tomorrow.
“It depends on the weather and the temperatures," he noted. "And then from fifth in the race on Sunday, that’s a good strong position to start from."
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