Lewis Hamilton and George Russell bagged a 4-5 result to mark the debut of the heavily revised W14, which has now gained more conventional sidepods and new front suspension.
While the positions were unchanged, Russell was hit with a five-second penalty for rejoining the track in an unsafe manner as he made contact with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at Mirabeau.
Although Hamilton had the pace in the late wet stint to close to third-placed finisher Esteban Ocon, Mercedes motorsport boss Wolff said his drivers still noted the car was “not good”.
However, the Austrian considered that to be progress on the “awful” showing from Monaco in 2022 when top qualifier Russell was 0.736s off the pace aboard the porpoising W13.
Wolff said of the upgrades: “It’s so difficult [to assess] because we were in the mix with Aston Martin and with Ferrari, I would say.
“On a positive note, maybe encouraging because we have never been really good here.
“We have been three tenths behind pole. Last year was six tenths [sic].
“The car was awful last year and this time around the drivers said it’s not good.
“So, there’s a step in description. But we really need to be careful.
“We’ve got to go to Barcelona, collect more data. It’s a new baseline.
“I don’t expect us clearing Aston Martin and Ferrari there either.”
Source: Autosport