Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff were involved in an animated exchange in the Mercedes garage yesterday after another chastening day for the eight-time constructors' champions.
In a chaotic, rain-affected qualifying session for this afternoon's sprint race, in which a record five red flags were waved as cars spun off the track, neither Hamilton nor team-mate George Russell could make it into the final top-10 shoot-out.
Hamilton will line up 13th this afternoon, two places behind his young compatriot and a massive 1.7sec behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen, of Red Bull, who was 0.8sec quicker than Ferrari's championship leader, Charles Leclerc.
It marks the first time in nine years, since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix, that neither Mercedes car has reached Q3, ending a streak of 187 consecutive races. And Hamilton, still in his helmet, was seen in an animated exchange with his team principal after exiting his car.
"It was all internal stuff and I do not want to share that, but we will keep working," Hamilton said.
"It is what it is. We will just keep working hard. Each weekend is a rescue."
The writing had been on the wall in a wet first practice following a night of torrential rain. The two Mercedes were five and seven seconds off the pace as their "porpoising" problems continued and they struggled to get heat into their tyres.
Porpoising is caused by the airflow underneath the car stalling at high speed, leading the car to bounce.
Both Mercedes cars squeaked through Q1, which was halted for some time after a brake failure for Williams's Alexander Albon, which caused his tyre to explode. But they could not make it through the next session, in which they were unfortunate with the timing of a red flag after Ferrari's Carlos Sainz crashed at Rivazza. Having found it so difficult to get their tyres working, there had been signs they were beginning to manage it just as the session stopped, and it began raining again by the time it restarted.
"Naturally it is disappointing," Hamilton said. "You come here with optimism - you know everyone is working really hard at the factory and things just don't come together."
We underperformed as a team today. There are things we should have done which we did not do, but we will work as hard as we can to move up in the sprint race."
This will be the first of three sprint races this season. The format, which was trialled last year, means drivers qualify on Friday for a shortened race on Saturday before a full grand prix on Sunday.
The sprint race has become more important, with eight points on offer for first place, down to one point for eighth.Leclerc, who leads Russell by 34 points in the drivers' standings, admitted he was annoyed that he had not managed to capitalise on his car's potential to take pole.
Verstappen's time was set on a lap on which the Dutchman had to back off for Valtteri Bottas's stranded Alfa Romeo. He was allowed to keep the time because he had slowed sufficiently for the incident.Leclerc had been 0.02sec quicker on their first laps of the final session but chose to back off before going for a second lap, while Verstappen kept going for another time straight away. The championship leader said he had made the "wrong choice".
