Mercedes unsure Ricciardo was beatable

Both drivers suffered fuel pressure issues at the start of Q3, and Lewis Hamilton lost a lot of time when his car had to be returned to the garage.

Despite that, Wolff admitted he was unsure his team could have beaten Ricciardo.

"We are used to being on pole for a couple of years, but you need to manage your own and everybody's expectations," said Wolff.

"Red Bull and Ricciardo deserved the pole position today. He was blindingly fast in the third sector, and I'm not sure we could have beaten that.

"Unfortunately we had a scrappy session with both cars in Q3, we had a fuel pressure problem on both cars. Would that have changed anything? I don't know. Red Bull deserved the pole, because that's where they are."

Hamilton's only run in Q3 was compromised when he had a bad first lap, and then had to do an extra slow lap to make sure he was on his final fast lap at the same time as everyone else.

"It was compromised because we needed to bring him back into synch. He aborted his first lap because it was not good enough, and in order to synchronise him with all the others he did two more laps.

"It's a scrappy session, and if you are having one shot less than the others, it is not the right thing to do."

Asked if Red Bull form was circuit specific, he said: "Monaco is a very different track. If you were to build an F1 car specifically for Monaco it would totally different than for all the other tracks.

"We know that it is the case to try to get the best compromise together. We knew that Red Bull were going to be very difficult to beat, and they proved that."

Wolff played down Ricciardo's choice of supersoft tyres for the start, and the prospect of him being able to run further.

"I don't know if it makes a big difference, because you can probably take the ultrasoft anyway to the distance. If it's dry and if they manage to get off the starting line well, it's going to be very difficult.

"But race day is tomorrow."