The heavy rain that hit Intercity Park, combined with the lack of grip  caused by a recent resurfacing finally caused the downfall of Mercedes, in an exercise they had always dominated since the beginning of the 2020 season. The Silver Arrows looked to struggle to get their tyres up to temperature, and showed a puzzling qualifying pace nobody has been accustomed to. 

Although Valtteri Bottas said on Friday that he really had fun playing around in low grip conditions thanks to his rallycross experiences - on the Paul Ricard track and Lapland  - that came in handy, Saturday was everything but a good day at the office. 

Far from their usual level of performance, Hamilton qualified in 6th, with Bottas bringing his struggling W11 in 9th, respectively 4.795 seconds and 5.493 seconds of the mark set by Lance Stroll.

When asked about his session, Hamilton said:

"It was definitely one of the least enjoyable, if not the least enjoyable that I've had"

"This track, the layout is so great, but the grip is so poor that you can't really generate the grip to go through the corners at the speed we would like.”

"But otherwise, it was a challenge, and challenges are always good.”

"The track surface grip is the worst I've ever experienced in any year of racing. Considering how much downforce we have, it's been a challenge.”

"Going into the wet today made it even harder. So we were definitely limited by grip and temperature, but I'm pretty happy with the job I did."

"The track surface grip is the worst I've ever experienced in any year of racing. Considering how much downforce we have, it's been a challenge.

"Going into the wet today made it even harder. So we were definitely limited by grip and temperature, but I'm pretty happy with the job I did."

From Friday, Hamilton admitted he didn’t get to set up his car, but Saturday was no different as the Briton said he was in a bit of an unknown considering his race trim. He anticipates however, another difficult day in the eventuality of a wet race.

"I have no idea what car I've got underneath me tomorrow. We made some set-ups going into today, and then it's been wet.

"If it's dry, I have no idea how it is going to feel, if it's wet, I know it's going to be, it could feel as bad as today. We'll just go with it. We're all in the same boat out there, we're all struggling. It's really cool."

The the six-time world champion congratulated Lance Stroll on his maiden pole position, saying: 

"Congrats to Lance on the pole, that's pretty awesome. We look forward to a fight with them tomorrow."

As for Valtteri Bottas in the sister Mercedes, he has to outscore his teammate by eight points, in order to keep his bid to the world title alive. Unfortunately for the Finn, despite having the upper hand during all the previous sessions, he replicated the usual pattern of falling short behind his teammate when it matters the most, three places behind Hamilton. He reflected on the impact of switching to the intermediate tyres which, according to him, would not have made such a difference, considering how they struggled to get their tyres in the right window temperature.

“Getting the tyres to work and getting enough heat in the tyres has been the story of the weekend so far – and I think even worse in the wet today. We really tried everything we could."

"In the end when we went for the inter in Q3, we only had three laps left and two laps was never going to be enough to create enough tyre temperature. Other teams they’re doing a better job in that area.”

In the end, Mercedes summed what was a significant mishap from the newly crowned constructors’ champions.

“You won’t hear any excuses or clever quotes from us today. We were absolutely nowhere near pole.”

 

You won’t hear any excuses or clever quotes from us today.

We were absolutely nowhere near pole.

Today belongs to @RacingPointF1 and @lance_stroll 👏👏👏

We’ll be down with a bottle of champagne later. You guys deserve it!

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 14, 2020