‘Another customer beat them’ - Kravitz on Mercedes' 'underwhelming' qualifying

Norris out-qualified Lewis Hamilton to secure fourth on the grid behind Max Verstappen and the two Ferrari drivers.

Norris made the most of McLaren’s upgrades to secure his best qualifying result of the year.

It also meant that Mercedes were beaten by one of their customer teams, with Aston Martin often having the upperhand so far in F1 2023.

Speaking after qualifying during his ‘Notebook’ segment on Sky Sports, Kravitz explained why there’s a “downbeat mood” at Mercedes.

“Mercedes have seen, with Norris ahead on the grid for Sunday, another customer team beat them,” Kravtiz said.

“That’s why they are in a downbeat mood. They are only fifth with Hamilton. Russell has looked off the pace of Hamilton. I don’t know what that’s about.

“Really disappointing. Mercedes came here thinking it’s a much more usual circuit layout which will help, they will be much more with it, in terms of pace. But they have been comparatively nowhere. 

“Hamilton felt it was underwhelming. Two tenths behind. Solidly P5 behind Norris. They have upgrades coming at Silverstone.”

Kravitz felt that Mercedes potentially made a mistake with Russell by not putting him on fresh tyres for the final run.

“Oh no, George! He had a time deleted, then didn’t fit new tyres, then was out in Q2,” he added.

“Maybe that was a mistake by the team. If they fitted some new softs, maybe George would have made it into Q3, but they were saving them for [Saturday] and for the grand prix.”