Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says Me🃏rcedes was lac💜king straight-line speed compared to Formula 1 rivals Ferrari during qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

Having bounced back from a disappointing performance at the season-opener in Melbourne, Ferrari continued to dominate proceedings✨ in Bahrain as Charles Leclerc headed a Scuderia front-row lock-out. 

Mercedes had struggled to match Ferrari’s pace all weekend and following the conclusion of qualifying, W🔜olff admitted the reigning world champions are losing out on the straights. 

“We are lacking in straight-lineౠ speed at the moment,” Wolff told Sky Sports.

“Whether this is drag or power, we need to analy�ꦫ�se. Obviously this is not great for the race either, overtaking will be an option tomorrow but you need a fast car on the straights.” 

Wolff revealed Mercedes began its aඣnalysis into the apparent deficit while qualifying was still going on🎃. 

“For sure𝄹 it’s a combination of theꦑ two and that post-mortem started mid-qualifying when we realised that we are lacking the speed and we take the analysis from there,” Wolff added. 

Mercedes had traile🐻d Ferrari by a large margin for much of the weekend but Lewis Hamilton managed to close to within 0.324s of Le💜clerc’s pole time in Q3, with the Briton less than a tenth behind Sebastian Vettel in third. 

Asked if the final gap was closer than expected, Wolff replied: “No I think it wa🥂s wha♒t we expected after the practice sessions. 

“It’s a bit of a disappointment because it’s a gap and we need to♑ analyse where that comes from. On long runs we were doing OK, I think that looked good.”