Mercedes under pressure by Red Bull: 'We don't know how good they are at it'

During qualifying for the Eifel Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas surprisingly managed to come out on top. According to Andrew Shovlin, his direct competitors peaked too early.

At the Nürburgring it was Max Verstappen who set the fastest time after the first laps in Q3, but Lewis Hamilton also had good pace. Valtteri Bottas was behind his teammate for the entire qualifying session.

In the end it was the Finn who crossed the line as the fastest driver. "Well done Valtteri, it was a strong pole lap. He certainly saved the best for last," said Andrew Shovlin in the Team Review of Mercedes.

Peaked too early

According to Shovlin, his competitors have already shown their best performance earlier in qualifying. "Lewis was driving very strong laps earlier in the session but, like Max, he showed his best lap in Q2. He couldn't find the same grip when it really mattered in the last session," continued Mercedes' engineer.

"The race itself will be a bit of a voyage of discovery, as we don't know how fast our competitors are in the long runs and we don't really know how the tyres will respond. In any case, the soft tyre looked good this morning, so we are happy to start the race on that, but we will continue to look at the wear and tear during the first stint," concluded Shovlin.