Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff disagrees with Lewis Hamilton about the cause of Mercedes’ poor performance in Brazil. Lewis Hamilton stated that this was due to the new floor of the Mercedes W14, but Toto Wolff disagrees.
During both the sprint race and the race on Sunday, Mercedes fell back throughout the races, with a disappointing result, especially during the race on Sunday: eighth place for Hamilton and a retirement for George Russell.
Toto Wolff certainly does not agree with Hamilton regarding the cause of Mercedes’ disappointing performance. According to Toto Wolff, it was not just the floor that was the cause, although after the disqualification in Austin they did ride slightly higher in Brazil.
We drove the car too high and it is something that will affect you for the rest of the race weekend after the first practice session, said Wolff. There is something fundamentally wrong mechanically. Or it is not the rear wing or the car that is set a little too high, after all you are talking about one or two millimeters, that is not something that explains a race weekend that was so bad.
What particularly surprised Toto Wolff was the incredibly variable performance of Mercedes in recent races.
From a really fast car, with really good balance, our drivers went from very happy to a nightmare. How is that even possible?
What is wrong? I wouldn’t be surprised if we analyze the cars in the coming days and discover a mechanical problem with our car setup, although I have no idea what it could be.
According to Toto Wolff, a start from the pit lane, where Mercedes could take the cars out of the park and adjust them, would not have guaranteed a better result.
We fundamentally didn’t know what we could change because we had a much bigger problem, Wolff said. We thought about it but when we thought about trying to maximize points, it was probably the right decision to just start on the grid.