Setup error to blame for Mercedes struggles

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has explained a setup error was the cause of his team's lack of pace during Thursday's two practice sessions for the Monaco Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in FP1 with Valtteri Bottas fourth quickest in a close opening session, but the afternoon saw Hamilton down in eighth place and his teammate two positions further back. With both cars over a second off the fastest time set by Sebastian Vettel, Wolff explained the poor showing was a result of an error in terms of the way the cars were set up for FP2.

"We take the positives," Wolff said. "We've taken a wrong junction in setting the car up in a direction which we believed was good and now the consequences are that we are eighth and 10th, and many valuable lessons learned.

"We couldn't back out of it. We committed to the setup change – it's pretty dramatic. You need a couple of hours to undo that, more than a session would last so we decided to just push through and collect some data.

"The issue was an overall lack of grip which the drivers complained, not even just the front or just the rear, we just went out of the window everywhere."

While Wolff is confident the issue can be rectified, he admits the difficult session will have left Mercedes slightly on the back foot ahead of the final practice session on Saturday.

"We were pretty competitive in the morning so we just need to backtrack it and that's not a very difficult exercise. Nevertheless, we lost a session where we could have progressed a little bit; we are lacking data so it's now about sticking the heads together, staying calm and trying to work as good as possible for Saturday morning."

While much has been made of the long Mercedes wheelbase, Hamilton was happy with the car in FP1 and doesn't believe it is a disadvantage in Monaco.

"It's handling really good, particularly this morning, and then just this afternoon for whatever reason the tires weren't working," Hamilton said. "That's something we have to figure out and fix before Saturday.

"Ferrari are very quick and also Red Bull seem really quick this weekend. For some reason we were really struggling in FP2, just something with the tyres and just sliding around a lot. FP1 was really good, so we have to try and get back to that."