Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said he was pleased with the team’s result in the Belgian Grand Prix but suspects the team had chances to put race winner Charles Leclerc under more pressure.
Wolff said Ferrari’s superior straight-line speed meant it would have been difficult for Mercedes to score a better result than they did. Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished behind Leclerc on the podium.“If you would have given me a second and third in Spa [before the race] I would have taken it because we know that our package compared to the Ferraris with the straight-line speed is inferior,” said Wolff.
“Look at turn one and then the following straight: Sebastian [Vettel] can’t be more off the line than he was and he was still able to overtake us.”
However Wolff believes there were missed opportunities to bring Hamilton closer to Leclerc at the end of the race. “If we would have really optimised our race, which you can only do post-race by being super-intelligent and saying what could have been, maybe we could have pitted one or two laps earlier. Maybe the pit stop could have been a little bit quicker.
“We would have been in his gearbox for the last two laps. But there is so many ifs that I must say I’m overall satisfied for us with the second and third place. We’ve got to take that.”
Wolff also said the team had been slightly conservative with its engine settings after two of the six new power units it introduced this weekend suffered failures before the race.
“I know now a little bit how Red Bull felt in ’14 and ’15 when you are on the back foot on the straights,” he said. “Not a good weekend.
“We introduced phase three of our power unit and we had two failures on Checo [Perez’s] and Robert [Kubica’s] cars, which are not understood.
“It didn’t compromise us massively, it did a tiny bit. We were not taking any risks in the race. But it was certainly not a comfortable situation because the failures look to be different and are not analysed yet, and understood.”
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AMG44 (@amg44)
1st September 2019, 20:11
“I know now a little bit how Red Bull felt in ’14 and ’15 when you are on the back foot on the straights,”
And 16, 17, 18 and 19….
With that kind of Engine advantage Ferrari has right now and an inspired Leclerc behind the wheel, P2 was the best possible result for Mercedes this weekend. I am surprised Lewis got so close to winning.
Kingshark (@kingshark)
2nd September 2019, 6:41
Is it really that surprising? The Mercedes chassis is a million miles better than the Ferrari chassis, and Spa sector 2 is all corners.
Ferrari was faster on softs, but Mercedes was quite a bit faster on mediums (in the hands of both Hamilton and Bottas).
AMG44 (@amg44)
2nd September 2019, 7:35
I dont think its million miles better, its only slightly better. That is why Ferrari led so many races like Bahrain, Baku, Canada, Austria, Spa.
Ferrari has a significant engine advantage and 2 out 3 sectors of Spa are all straights so Ferrari still had an overall advantage. Its only the end of stint tire life which Ferrari struggles with and they begin loosing a lot of performance. Once they will get on top of their tyre issues and learn to extend tire life they wouldn’t be very far off Mercedes.
socksolid (@socksolid)
1st September 2019, 20:18
I wonder if he is serious with these comments…
Nigel
2nd September 2019, 10:30
Why not ?
If you look at the relative speeds on the straights, which is all his comment relates to, it’s entirely sensible.
Lums (@lums)
1st September 2019, 20:43
If Kimi was still with Ferrari, Mercedes would have won today, ‘cos Vettel is faster on average and we’d have never seen the true potential of that Ferrari engine on the straights. This is why its so important to have the best drivers driving for you.
David BR (@david-br)
1st September 2019, 20:50
@lums Very good point and difficult to argue with. Leclerc is now consistently faster than Vettel, while Vettel was consistently faster than Raikkonen. That makes a big difference in terms of extracting the potential from the car.
MG1982 (@mg1982)
2nd September 2019, 6:01
Just that VET seems to have a bigger problem this year than 2017,18 in getting the best out of the car.
Lums (@lums)
2nd September 2019, 6:55
@mg1982
Yea whatever. If Leclerc was in that Ferrari in 17, 18, it would have been a different story.
Lewis would still be a 5 times champ in that Ferrari. Seb is done.
simonl
1st September 2019, 21:15
So…
– Lewis has slow pit stop
– Seb holds up Lewis for a while
– Mercedes engine can not use party mode
– Ferrari has superior engine on a top speed track
Only then can Ferrari win. And only by a hair, saved by the checkered flag.
Sad.
Driving in circles
1st September 2019, 23:42
If Max had not been involved in the first turn accident he would have been fighting for the win as well…
bob (@riptide)
1st September 2019, 23:56
-Take away Hamilton
and the Ferrari win(s) become that much easier
Kingshark (@kingshark)
2nd September 2019, 6:40
@riptide
Take away Leclerc and Mercedes finish 1-2
At the end of the day, you can only judge a car by how the fastest driver does in it.