Toto Wolff pinpoints “atrocious” Japanese GP issue that derailed Mercedes
Toto Wolff explains what he thinksꦜ ruined Mercedes' race at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix.
Toto Wolff believes Mercedes could have been on for a podium finish without “an atrocious first stint” at the F1 Japanese Grand Prix.
Mercedes opted for a bold tyre strategy following an early red flag by switching 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell onto the hard compound in an attempted one-stop.
But the team were ultimately forced to convert to a conventio🍒nal two-stop and Russღell could only finish seventh, two places ahead of Hamilton in ninth.
"We🍬 ended up where we started and it was just very difficult," Mer𒊎cedes team principal Wolff told Sky F1.
"We had a second and third stint that was super quick and we would've been racing for a podium but an 𓃲atrocious fir🔯st 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 because it looked𒁃 pretty stable in terms of lap times.
"They were not pullin🍷g 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.”
Althougℱh a frustrated Hamilton had called for Mer𝔉cedes to “change the strategy” during the race, afterwards he admitted it would have made little difference.
"I don't know what the different strategy would've been, whether we stayed on the medium to start, but💫 we still had two really terrible hard tyres to run through," the seven-time world champion said.
"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, t🐎he car was pretty bad today.”
Despite another disappointing race, Wolff༒ is taking the positives from the weekend and insists Mercedes are going in the right direction.
“It’s better than it looks with the final result,” he said. “Also, in qual🐓ifying, there is lots that we have learn𒊎ed. It will get better from here.
"We need to be quick on all circu𒐪its. There is no excuse on temperature or track layouts. 𓂃We need to sort it out.
“That’s why I said this is live testing 🦹for us. We’ve changed things massively. The car is becoming quicker.”
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