Toto Wolff expressed his belief that his team’s drivers were in contention for a top-three finish until a strategic decision during a race restart altered their course.
The incident leading to a red flag, caused by a collision between Ricciardo and Albon, prompted Mercedes to adjust its tyre strategy, opting to switch from medium to hard tyres for both of its drivers, a move later deemed regrettable.
This adjustment led to a noticeable decrease in pace for the Mercedes drivers, contrasting starkly with the race strategies of most competitors who favored a two-stop strategy. Consequently, Mercedes drivers ended up making three pit stops, ultimately returning to the medium tyres they began the race with.
Reflecting on the race’s outcome, Wolff lamented, “We ended up where we started and it was just very difficult. We had a second and third stint that was super quick and we would’ve been racing for a podium but for an atrocious first stint.
“We need to find out what it was, was it too hot, were we over-managing.”
“I think it was the right thing to do at the beginning,” he mentioned, regarding the original strategy to use hard tyres after the restart,”because it looked pretty stable in terms of lap times.
“They were not pulling away too much, the direct competitors, but then it suddenly dropped like two seconds a lap and two and a half second per lap. In that moment it was clear it wouldn’t last.
“I don’t know what the different strategy would’ve been,” stated Lewis Hamilton, “whether we stayed on the medium to start, but we still had two really terrible hard tyres to run through.
“The hard tyre was pretty bad, as I said, but the medium tyre was better. In hindsight, it looks like we should have had two medium tyres. But in general, the car was pretty bad today.”
Apart from the strategic decisions, Hamilton’s performance was further hindered by an incident with Leclerc during the restart, which resulted in significant understeer. This issue, especially pronounced in the latter part of the race, led him to propose exchanging positions with his teammate at Mercedes.
“The car is never what I would have hoped it would be, it’s never what we’d hoped it would be,” said Hamilton. “I got some damage in the first stint in the restart with Charles, and I had massive understeer, like huge, huge understeer. So that’s why I decided to let George by, because he seemed quicker.
“I just couldn’t turn the car,” he added, “and it took us two stints to finally dial more and more wing in to make up for that loss. The last stint I was better, but it was too late. I had ten seconds to regain.”
On Saturday, Hamilton appeared much more optimistic regarding the development of the W15, but his perspective seemed to shift dramatically within the next 24 hours.
“I don’t know if you can take many positives from the weekend,” he stated. “I mean the car has finished which is good. But we’re like you know 7th, 8th, 9th fastest.”
