05 November 2023 , 20:13
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Toto Wolff could barely contain his rage after a dreadful Brazilian Grand Prix for his Mercedes team.
The team clearly got its car set-ups wrong after just one hour of practice on the final Sprint weekend of the season. Their rear wings were too big, slowing the W14s on the straights and causing too much damage to the tyres in the corners.
Lewis Hamilton could manage only eighth despite a good start that propelled him up to third place. And George Russell did not finish at all, running behind his team-mate when an oil temperature problem led to Mercedes cutting their losses.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, team principal Wolff was full of quiet rage and did not mince his words as he assessed the weekend. "An inexcusable performance," he said. "There are no words for that. That car finished second last week and the week before and whatever we did to it was horrible.
"Lewis survived out there but George... I can only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing. So it shows how difficult the car is, it's on a knife's edge. We've got to develop it better for next year because it can't be that in seven days of finishing on the podium with a solid, quick car, you're nowhere.
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"We're clearly not world champions on Sprint race weekends. We did some good work here at the track to get it done, but it still doesn't explain what went wrong. The car drove like it was on three wheels and not four."
Mercedes won in Brazil last year – the team's only victory of the season. But Wolff does not believe his team will be able to manage the top step of the podium in 2023 and does not think it would be appropriate for the W14 to achieve that.
"This car doesn't deserve a win," he added. "We need to push through the last two races, recover – I think that's the most important thing – and see what we can do in Las Vegas, a different track, and Abu Dhabi. But the performance today was... I'm lacking words.
"Straight line speed was one issue but probably not the main factor. I think the main factor was we couldn't go around the corners with the bigger wing with the pace we needed and we were killing the tyres, just eating them up within a few laps."
Hamilton's result leaves him 32 points adrift of Sergio Perez in the drivers' standings. It means he is still mathematically in the hunt for second place in the drivers' standings, but realistically needs the Mexican to fail to finish both remaining races to stand any chance of toppling him.