Toto Wolff’s brutal assessment of Mercedes’ worst race of F1 2023: "An inexcusable performance"
Mercedes endured their worst race of a difficult 2023 season, with 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton slipping to eighth, while teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell retired with an overheati🅰ng power unit when running in a lowly 11th.
It was a result that brought Mercedes back 𓂃down to earth after the team appeared to be making encouraging gains in the first two races of the Americas triple-header.
Compounding Mercedes’ misery, Hamilton finished over a minute behind race-winner 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen.
“An inexcusable performance. There’s 🌳no words for tha🎃t,” Wolff told Sky.
“That car finished second last week and the week before and whatever we did to it was horrible. Lewis survived out there but I caꩵn only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing.
“It shows how difficult the car is, it’s on a knife’s edge. You’ve got to developꦅ that better for next year, because it can’t be that within seven days you’re finishing on the podiu🅰m, solid, with one of the two quickest cars, and then you’re nowhere and finishing eighth.”
Wolff continued: “We are clearly not world championඣs on sprint race we༒ekends. We do some good work, here on track, to get it done.
“Still, that doesn’t explain what weღnt wr🌠ong. The car almost drove like it was on three wheels and not on four.”
Asked if the W14 deserves a w🍸in before the end of tꦰhe year, Wolff replied: “This car doesn’t deserve a win. We need to push for the last two races and recover. I think that’s the most important thing.
“And see wh⛦at we can do in Las Vegas, a totally different track, and Abu Dhabi. But the performance today was… just…. I am just lacking words.”
Mercedes struggled with straightline speed throughout the weekend, as well💯 as extreme tyre degradation, with Wolff hinting that the team got their set-up wrong.
“Straight-line speed was one issue but not the main factor,” Wolf🦄f expl🎃ained.
“The main factor was that we couldn’t go around the corner, with the bigger wing, with the base we needed. We were killing the tyres, 🎀just eating them up, within a few lap.”
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