Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff looks back with disappointment on the GP of the Netherlands. Wolff speaks of an underperformance that can be attributed to the entire team.
“I think we have been catastrophically out for far too long. We were completely wrong,” Toto Wolff admitted to Sky Sports F1 after the race. “We will look into it thoroughly.”
“This is never the fault of one person or one department. It’s the communication between the driver, the pit wall, the strategy, the weather and then all of us making decisions.”
“This was clearly below par from all of us, including myself. It’s good that this hurts. When you get bitten and then it stays with you.”
Lewis Hamilton made it clear that Mercedes had the speed to compete with race winner Max Verstappen (Lewis Hamilton: With the right strategy I could have competed with Max Verstappen). Toto Wolff agreed. According to Wolff, especially the ‘execution’ of the race was not good enough.
“It’s frustrating because the car had really good race pace. Once you relapse, it’s all about recovering what you can,” said Wolff. “We saw at the end that the George and Lewis, together with Max, performed very strongly. We could have finished much more ahead.”
Despite the disappointment, Toto Wolff wants to try to remember the positive.
“I prefer good speed, a fast car and a mediocre result, even when it hurts,” said Wolff. “But it remains bittersweet because the result is really very bad. We know what was possible, but that doesn’t count in our sport.”