Mercedes: 'Don't have an answer as to why the gap was so big'

Mercedes expected more from qualifying for the French Grand Prix. The team had high hopes for the normally high-performance French circuit, but once again Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were unable to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull Racing.

"It was not an easy qualifying session today. We struggled for single lap pace all day and both drivers did a good job to get the cars into the top six. It was not easy to get through to the final session," Andrew Shovlin begins in Mercedes' press release.

Like the other teams, Mercedes is expecting a tough race for the tyres. In the warm temperatures, the degradation at Paul Ricard is higher than expected and the asphalt temperature is predicted to be above fifty degrees Celsius. Mercedes hopes that tyre management will create opportunities for its drivers.

"We were trying a range of approaches to the out lap, but it wasn't really giving us any better overall pace. We don't really have an answer as to why the gap was so big. We're hoping that the race pace is stronger, although we didn't do enough laps on Friday to get a good impression of that," Shovlin said.