Lewis Hamilton and George Russell given clear Toto Wolff order after Mexico GP

30 October 2023 , 00:17

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Toto Wolff wants better qualifying results from Mercedes (Image: Sky Sports)

Toto Wolff demanded his drivers start qualifying better as he reacted to a strong Mercedes result at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton drove from sixth on the grid to finish second after avoiding trouble in an action-packed race. And George Russell also improved to finish sixth, fending off the challenge of Daniel Ricciardo in the final few laps.

Team principal Wolff was pleased with both drives and with the speed shown by his team's cars. But he feels there is more on the table for Mercedes in these final races of the season if they can qualify better.

"The smile on our face is because the car was strong," said the Austrian after the race. "Once Lewis was in free air, we had so much margin in the medium. The lap times were good and [he got the] fastest lap at the end.

"It's been a few weekends now where we say we could have, but didn't. I think we need to qualify better. Probably with the straight-line speed, we wouldn't have been so competitive against Max, but who knows, the pace is there.

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"It was a brilliant, brilliant drive from Lewis. We have these oscillations in performance and we don't really know sometimes if the tyres stick. Just a few degrees of track temperature and you are out of the window."

Hamilton's result is a significant one in terms of the outcome of his season. Having also secured the fastest lap of the race, the Brit essentially halved the gap to Sergio Perez in the drivers' standings after the home hero crashed out on the first lap.

Just 20 points now separate them in the fight to finish runner up to Max Verstappen, who already has his third championship success sewn up. And Hamilton was delighted with his performance and with his colleagues for a job well done in Mexico City.

"We weren't having to push crazy hard out there, but this is a great result considering we started sixth," he beamed. "I'm really proud of the team. This has been a really difficult couple of weeks, and to bounce back from a difficult weekend last weekend with this result is really well done."

The overriding feeling for Russell was frustration, having nursed a brakes issue throughout the Grand Prix. "The last 20 laps were just terrible," he lamented. "The pace was really strong after the red flag and I felt really good in the car... and then my brakes overheated and there was concern we weren't going to make it to the end. I had to back off and I lost all the temperature in my tyres."

Daniel Moxon