Toto Wolff says Mercedes are facing a “12kph” deficit to Red Bull’s168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Max Verstappen as he ruled out a challenge for victory at the F1 Austrian Grand Prix.

Verstappen claimed a dominant pole position from McLaren’s Lando Norris in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday, while George Russell was the fastest Mercedes driver in third, some h🅷alf a second adrift.

Following qualifying, Wolff revealed the ♋extent of Mercedes’ deficit to Verstappen in Austria.

“Max i💦s driving in another hemisphere. He’s g𒀰one.” Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

“The gap to him is huge, and that on a circuit with a lap time of just one minute. I think the order will proba🅰bly remain the same.

“We lose 12kph compared to Verstappen, then of course you ca💝n’t achieve anything.

“But I think it’s really just a downforce problem. We don’t have enough downforce her꧒e in the fast corners.”

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamil⛎ton qualified fifth, with Carlos Sainz putting his Ferrari between the two Mercedes.

Hamilton admitted after qualifying that Verstappen’s significant advantage might force Mer🌠cedes to reassess their hopes of winning a race this year.

“We just don’t have enough downforce. Th📖at’s all we got,”🐈 Hamilton explained. “I don’t know the answer. Honestly, I don’t know the answer.

“If I could take a piece of downforce and ch🍸uck it on the back, I would, but that’s not how it goes. We’re just going to continue to work on improvement.

“But the notion of us potentially winning a race this year, when you get a half-a-second gap like today, makes it a litt🔯le bit further down the road, but we’ve got to keep 🍒pushing.”

Meanwhile, Russell also downplayed his chances of fighti𝓡ng for🥃 the win in Sunday’s grand prix.

“🌃I think it’s a bit more challenging here,” Russell said when asked if he could challenge at the front as he did las𝕴t week in Barcelona.

“I think these guys a⭕lways get their elbows out. So maybe this time it’s, you know, sit back and watch it all take🌳 place.

“But I think, you know, last week I lost a lot of time battling with Lando and probably focused too much on the guys ahead of me and ultimately that cost me the pos🐷ition to Lew🍷is and almost to Charles as well.”