09/04/2024
NEWS STORY
Toto Wolff believes that his drivers could have been battling for a podium position had it not been for the decision to change strategy at the restart.
Following the red flag resulting from the Ricciardo/Albon clash, Mercedes was one of the few teams to change its tyre strategy, switching both its drivers from mediums to hards. It was a decision the team would come to regret.
As both drivers struggled for pace it soon became clear that the strategy was not going to work, and while most opted for a two-stopper, the Mercedes duo required three stops, ironically ending the race on the same mediums with which they'd originally started.
"We ended up where we started and it was just very difficult," said Wolff at race end. "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," he added.
"I think it was the right thing to do at the beginning," he said of the original decision to (re)start on the hards, "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," said 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."
Other than strategy, Hamilton's cause wasn't helped by a clash with Leclerc at the restart, which left him serious understeer, and which, in the final stages, caused him to suggest swapping places with his Mercedes teammate.
"The car is never what I would have hoped it would be, it's never what we'd hoped it would be," said the seven-time world champion. "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 continued, "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 had seemed altogether more positive about progress with the W15, though his opinion appeared to have changed 24 hours later.
"I don't know if you can take many positives from the weekend," he said. "I mean the car has finished which is good. But we're like you know 7th, 8th, 9th fastest."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Suzuka here.