Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, Monaco, 2018

Mercedes ‘would’ve taken third and fifth’ pre-race – Wolff

2018 Monaco Grand Prix reaction

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Mercedes’s Toto Wolff says his team would have taken a third and fifth place finish at the Monaco Grand Prix based on their expectations before the weekend.

Speaking to the media after Lewis Hamilton finished third and Valtteri Bottas fifth in Monaco with Mercedes unable to challenge Red Bull and Ferrari in front, Wolff says the result was in line with what he expected from Mercedes performance wise.

“Third and fifth? We probably would’ve taken that before the weekend,” says Wolff. “I would’ve taken third and fifth before the weekend, but then our own expectations are that you want to aim higher.

“As much as we’d like to win races, you need to be also conscious enough that there will be days where it’s more difficult. It’s damage limitation.”

After Lewis Hamilton suggested post-race that the on-track action around Monaco was underwhelming, Wolff believes a relative lack of incidents may have contributed.

“This is Monaco. It’s rare that there is no Safety Car or no major incident and it’s happened this year,” says Wolff.

“There’s good football games and there’s bad football games. This was one of the more rather calm ones.

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3 comments on “Mercedes ‘would’ve taken third and fifth’ pre-race – Wolff”

  1. I’d have to agree with him there. Mercedes were really the third best team this weekend so looking at 5th&6th without incidents. A good qualifying from Hamilton and mistake from Verstappen helped get them on the podium and Bottas backed it up with their predicted best result, so overall I think they’ll go home fairly happy.

    Canada will be really interesting though. I’d usually expect Mercedes to dominate but after Baku I’m not so sure.

    1. Canada? I know someone who has won there 6 times and drives a Silver car. He’s going to be full on vibranium.

  2. I think Mercedes should be a little disappointed. Yes, they were third best, and it’s not a terrible result on their bogey track. But with Hamiltons early pitstop, they were always going to run out of ultra soft tyres, but have track position for third.
    With overtaking so impossible, a gamble for super soft to see what happened would seem to be worthwhile. I was surprised they went ultra. As it turned out, the pace Bottas had on the supers could have seen Hamilton jump further ahead during the pitstops, or have the pace at the end to challenge when those around him had nothing left.

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