Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff insists that he is happy with the performance of his team at Suzuka despite scoring just eight points.
George Russell finished seventh in the Japanese Grand Prix after passing Oscar Piastri late in the race, while team mate Lewis Hamilton came home ninth.Both drivers took the restart following the opening lap red flag on hard tyres before running a second stint on hards before switching to mediums at their second stops. Wolff says the team’s decision to restart on hard tyres did not work out, but he was pleased with the performance of their cars over the rest of the race.
“We had an atrocious first stint, which we need to analyse why,” he told the official F1 channel.
“A very good second and third stint and that is the positive that we take from the race. It is live testing now, for us. We’ve been on the back foot and besides our shoes for two seasons and now we’ve taken a different direction and I think [that] this is happening.”
Despite a low scoring race for Mercedes, Wolff insists that the set-up experiments carried out over the weekend have been “definitely much better,” than previously.
“Lots more data that point us in the right direction, even if it’s not reflected in the results,” he said.
“The experiments have worked. We have a clear direction – even though the qualifying and race result doesn’t reflect it at all. We’ve aimed for one-stop and then we found out it wasn’t possible, we’ve probably over-managed the tyres, but the moment we have picked up the speed on the similar stint lengths like the others, we were competitive.”
After his positive assessment of Mercedes’ race pace later in the race, Wolff says he “can’t wait to go racing” at the next round in China in two weeks’ time.
“We just need to have a better start of the weekend,” he said.
“Some of the proof of concept that we’ve done here will be on the car and then we’ll see what we can do in Shanghai.”
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2024 Japanese Grand Prix
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pcxmac (@pcxmac)
7th April 2024, 10:37
the only positive is that next round they will probably do enough to understand how bad the hards are on a full tank.
as for lewis giving way to his teammate, thats a fast ticket to losing a lot of fans. cant believe how docile and easily pushed around he is. its ridiculous. the sooner he realizes the only thing his team is doing is beating him, the better, because thats all they can do at this point, put George i front and throw Lewis under the bus strategy wise. his race engineer practically works for George, Max would never tollerate such horrible support, and thats why hes in a winning car and Lewis is under the bus.
Peter
7th April 2024, 10:44
He is leaving end of season?!
Nick T.
7th April 2024, 11:29
Yeah. He’s moving to Haas.
earthling (@34rthl1ng)
7th April 2024, 10:50
Can you imagine that in 2007? LOL
Ajaxn
7th April 2024, 10:54
Hamilton battling Russell would only have eaten up their tires sooner, and given Russell’s track record, might have led to him making mistakes and loosing more team points. Today they were driving for the team.
Ajaxn
7th April 2024, 10:57
Btw it was Lewis who volunteered to let the closing Russell drive cleanly pass him.
Ivan Vinitskyy (@ivan-vinitskyy)
7th April 2024, 11:36
It looked like Lewis was completely dejected with his / car pace so didn’t want to compromise his team mate as he did look a bit faster. After the switch however it showed George was just as slow and better strategy kept him ahead. I’m sure he regretted giving up that place now.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
7th April 2024, 18:55
Lewis was also asking why George was so far up the road, I suspect they are lying about something. The sad thing is Lewis is covering for a team that completely gets him from behind every race on strategy and preference.
AlanD
7th April 2024, 15:49
We didn’t hear the conversation before that point, or exactly why Hamilton’s car was slow. Hamilton fell back quite some way on those tyres, and it seemed strange that they’d keep him out waiting for the perfect pit window when he seemed to be losing a second a lap. Surely a strategy error again by Merc. They still pitted Russell first and by the time they pitted Hamilton he was about nine seconds behind Russell, clawed it back to about three, then the next pit stops saw him miles behind again.
Ben
7th April 2024, 11:59
Hamilton was dreadful again. He looks as washed up as Ricciardo. Looks like he got fed up of being outqualified so he set up for single lap pace to finally get ahead. But it came back to bite him today. That’s 4-0 and 3-1 to Russell this year. Ouch.
He’s literally become a pay driver at Ferrari. Cashed in his reputation to waste a Ferrari seat. Sad that such a winning career is forced to end as nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at driving up Ferrari stock price.
Kotrba
7th April 2024, 13:06
Lewis let Russell by (have no idea why), but he stayed with him. Russell did not again anything on him in the race, except for the undercuts in the pits. When Russel stopped the first time, Lewis was 2 secs behind him. Once Hamilton has pitted the gap was around 6 secs. Hamilton erased much of the gap before the second stops, but was called in two laps later and the gap was circa 9 secs. In finish the gap between the two was again some 3 secs.
Had Piastri did not make a mistake on penultimate lap, I though Mercedes would tell Russell to let Lewis back in.
With regards to Ferrari, it was their drivers who wasted the seats at Ferrari last year. They should have easily been 3rd-4th in WDC last year. If Hamilton keeps his 2023-ish form I am confident he will best Leclerc by a safe margin.
AlanD
7th April 2024, 15:54
I agree with teams who order drivers to swap places during the race to maximise the team strategy. I disagree with teams swapping drivers on the last lap to pander to the ego of the driver.
joe (@geeijoe)
7th April 2024, 14:17
There is no championship called Hamilton, why don’t you just support George and let other drivers be!
David BR (@david-br)
8th April 2024, 1:53
You should write for PlanetF1.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
7th April 2024, 12:55
Strategy by Roscoe. “Over-managing” and overthinking by Mercedes’? Surely not!
AlanD
7th April 2024, 15:59
They spent too long waiting to find the perfect pit stop window when they should just have admitted the tyres were awful and changed the straight away. MErcedes drivers got their results today in spite of the strategy, not because of the strategy.
Kotrba
7th April 2024, 13:16
The car is awfull. They had no business fighting the top four teams today. They were lucky Alonso was on subpar strategy as he chose Softs at the restart, and then managed to hold Piastri behind him and block him in progress.
This will be the worst of seasons for Mercedes since 2021. They not only made zero progress since 2022, they have fallen back significantly.
DaveW (@dmw)
7th April 2024, 23:29
Mercedes swapping spots right before a stop was bizarre. Considering Hamilton lost ground on two undercuts plus a second lost on a bad second stop and finished right behind Russell and closing in it was a mistake. Hamilton had better race pace. But granted probably would not have got them past Alonso.