Wolff mildly positive after qualifying: 'Not far off the second row'

"The headline result of P7 and P9 is not great. The positive though is that we are not too far off the second row, just one tenth or so, at a track that was one of, if not the worst, last year," Wolff said. Who was initially going to skip the race in Japan, but had made the decision to come anyway.

Wolff thinks Mercedes has taken a good step with the car: "Everyone is pushing so hard to understand more about the W15 and how we can build on the platform we have. To see progress is therefore encouraging."

Minor progress for Mercedes

Andrew Shovlin, the team's Trackside Engineering Director, hopes the car will be more consistent and controllable in Japan: "Pleasingly, it looks like we've made some progress in that regard. We'd be a lot happier of course if we were a tenth quicker. That would have put us several positions higher up on the grid. The reality at the moment though is we are the wrong side of a tight bunch of cars and need to find some more performance," said the 50-year-old engineer.

Despite that, he also sees that the team has made some steps in the right direction and is hoping for an exciting race: "We have halved our gap to pole position from last year and can also be encouraged by the fact that even small steps forward will move us up the grid. The red flag and rain yesterday have meant we're short of long run data, but this is a race where you can move forward if you have good pace. We will be looking to make the most of the car we have, execute our strategy well, and hopefully can finish higher up than where we are starting."