George Russell said he did not know why he lacked pace in qualifying at Sepang on Saturday, after arriving with renewed confidence following a strong performance in Baku. The Mercedes driver qualified seventh for Sunday’s race, four places behind teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who finished ahead despite being compromised in Q3. Russell had one more set of new soft tyres available than Antonelli.

Russell had spoken on Thursday about feeling ready to challenge for wins consistently. “Now feel in a position that my performances are strong enough to fight for victory week in, week out,” he said. He described a change from the period before the summer break, when he said he was falling short in both the championship and car performance each weekend.

“Whereas now I feel I know what I need from the car, I know from myself and I don’t really feel lost anymore. The confidence is back, it’s growing again. And it’s all coming a bit more naturally, which is how it has been for me in most of my career,” Russell said.

He had also looked forward to the upgrade Mercedes brought to the car for the Sepang weekend. “I’m enjoying it more than I have done recently just because I feel more at one with the car and hopefully this new upgrade with a few characteristic changes are also going to play into my favourite a bit more,” he said.

The qualifying result left him puzzled. “I really don’t know,” Russell said afterward. “It was a strange one out there today.” He noted that Sepang puts particular demands on the tyres, while the team had not identified the reason for its lack of speed.

“It’s the most demanding circuit on the tyres [and] we don’t exactly know why we didn’t have the pace. I think from Friday, it was clear we weren’t on the pace of the Red Bulls,” he said. “Then throughout the course of this weekend, we just haven’t really progressed. The others have caught up and overtaken.”

Russell said he still expected the race to unfold differently from qualifying. “I think tomorrow the race is going to be a totally different story,” he said. He pointed to high tyre degradation and the viability of all three tyre compounds as factors that could open up chances to gain places.

“Very high tyre degradation, all three tyre compounds look viable, so I think there will be some opportunities,” he said. The source account did not identify a specific cause for Mercedes’ pace loss or detail any further team response before the race.

Based on reporting by RaceFans.