Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was furious over the team’s strategy in qualifying which contributed to Lewis Hamilton’s elimination in the first round of qualifying on his final appearance for them.
Both Mercedes drivers were among the last to start their final flying laps in Q1 and had to find themselves space in traffic. Hamilton lost time behind Jack Doohan’s Alpine.However he was on course to improve his time until he encountered a bollard in turn 14 which Kevin Magnussen knocked in his path. Hamilton’s car picked up the bollard, impairing its performance, and he missed the cut for Q2 by less than a tenth of a second.
Afterwards Wolff admitted the team had let Hamilton down with their strategy. “I just need to apologise to Lewis also to everyone in the team that worked so hard in making it a great end for him,” he said.
“He was the quicker guy with that kind of set-up that we chose on the car, [which was] also to experiment for next year, and we totally let him down.
“It was an idiotic mistake of not going earlier. Inexcusable. Inexcusable. I rarely have been so down about what has happened. Maybe it summarises the last races we had with him, but this is the worst part of it because… it was just idiotic.”
Wolff said the team’s approach to Q1 had been too risky. “We were lucky that they, both of them, wrestled their way through the other traffic. And then, maybe without the bollard, it would have worked.
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“But you don’t risk so much in a Q1 where we had easy the pace to make it out there. And then our most valuable racing driver ever, the most valuable and greatest driver of this sport, gets out in Q1 because we make a mistake. A dilettantic mistake that doesn’t ruin for all the legacy we have with him, but I can only say sorry to him.”
Aside from his second place finish at Las Vegas, Hamilton has had a poor run of results during his final races as a Mercedes driver. Wolff said it was especially galling that the mistake appears to have cost him the chance to go out on a high.
“His pace was there. We would have had a real go for a podium, I guess. He was P3 this morning. And now it’s pretty much impossible from where he comes.”
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Edvaldo
7th December 2024, 16:46
They were lucky Russell made it; it could’ve been both cars out. It was Q1, not Q3. They’re much faster than the backmarkers, so there’s no need to take risks, yet they did it anyway.
SPArtacus
7th December 2024, 17:07
F1 engineers have no common sense and it was Merc giving a world class example today. They’ll follow spreadsheets even when reality in front of their face is clearly not diverging from their simulations. They’ll do it in the rain. They’ll do it when their driver is losing 3 seconds a lap to unexpected degradation. And time and again in quali, w/no consideration for whether going out at the last possible second will compromise them even more by stressing out the drivers, putting them in dirty air when they have to run too close to another car to make the line, etc. let alone simply not making it in time to start a lap at all due to traffic.
McLaren screwed Piastri the same way in Silverstone. And I know Ferrari did it at least twice to their drivers. During the first half of the season, Aston Martin did this to Alonso four times before he decided to start calling his own timing. Twice he couldn’t even make the line in time. Not surprisingly, 3 of the 4 times Stroll “out qualified” him were during these incidents.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
7th December 2024, 20:15
Have to agree, been watching F1 since about 2008, time after time you see drivers pitted to arrive at the start finish with seconds to go when they are ding dong last or there abouts. It rarely ever works out, not sure why these guys take those kinds of risks. If you don’t have a banker, give your self at least one more lap.
As for the engineers comment, having worked in the field, and in manufacturing, yeah, they have this thing with trying to cram the most in to the smallest package possible. They love taking limits so much, its like a dopamine blast when they can make the formula work. Rarely do engineers like this really see the whole pipeline or address all the risks, and people down the road end up paying for it.
Sooo soo frustrating to see Lewis pitted till the very end of Q1. Each driver should have the opportunity to set 3 decent laps in Q1, and if track conditions are worse, they need to be on worn slicks for their first run. And pass on the 2nd lap, if they have a solid banker.
SPArtacus
8th December 2024, 10:46
Interesting observation re: engineers. It makes a lot of sense. The idea of a perfectly optimized lap but which holds a 50% chance of backfiring or was never going to be truly optimized because of those pesky “human factors” they forgot calculate for getting engineers off more than a sensible comprise sounds about right. A tiny bit like taking a gamble for the win with a 5% chance of winning with a 95% chance of falling out of the points and sacrificing a near sure 5th place.
Doh
8th December 2024, 2:23
More proof that they have been giving Lewis experimental setups. Yet nobody seems to recognise it when discussing Lewis poor performances
SPArtacus
8th December 2024, 10:50
What benefit team would the team gain from giving Lewis an experimental setup do in the last race? They’d much rather have a Hollywood style ending to their partnership than to be tortured in social media by his legions of worshippers. Please come back to reality. If they were sabotaging him with experimental setups all season long, he wouldn’t have won races and someone would have spilled the beans.
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
7th December 2024, 16:54
Yeah this track seems really busy in Q1 with all cars on track especially on the final lap where times improve.
Looks like they setup the car for Lewis this race which makes it even more unfortunate.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Maybe a safety car could help.
justanothermanicfunday
7th December 2024, 16:58
We’ve been screaming at the telly about your teams daft qually and race strategies for years Toto…
Ajaxn
7th December 2024, 16:59
You couldn’t make this up…or could you? Were any of those bollards knocked off in practice? Will those bollards be kept for the race?
Dumb. I have not seen bollards like those on any other track. I get it. They are there to keep the drivers honest, but then what?
It’s like no one thought of what happens after those bollards are struck. It’s a tight track where slower cars need to move off the racing line for the faster cars coming through. Surely, they ran simulations to recognize what was likely to happen?… It’s just dumb.
I’d like to hear Magnusson’s radio, He was moving off line, was he aware it was Lewis coming up behind him?
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
7th December 2024, 17:03
We had bollard vs. Verstappen in Miami too, but that was at least self inflicted. I think they’re there because the car park design of the track is that horrible that the drivers need them to see the apex of certain corners…
Jere (@jerejj)
7th December 2024, 17:09
@roadrunner Bollards are in place at some corner apexes solely to deter corner-cutting.
SteveP
7th December 2024, 17:48
If someone wrote that into a film script, ignoring the fact that people would throw it out as too unbelievable, the stunt guys would spend months trying to make the trick work just once.
Leo B
7th December 2024, 17:34
Might have been better for Toto to go to Ferrari and Lewis to stay with Mercedes.
Applebook
7th December 2024, 23:42
50/50 that Hamilton even completes his first season with Ferrari, and 1% chance that he makes it the end of season two.
Doh
8th December 2024, 2:24
More proof that they have been giving Lewis experimental setups. Yet nobody seems to recognise it when discussing Lewis poor performances
Applebook
8th December 2024, 4:06
“I’m just not fast anymore.” Lewis Hamilton.
At least Lewis isn’t completely delusional. I would argue that he was never that fast.
SteveP
8th December 2024, 16:44
Another lucky day?
Second time in four years at AD that MV didn’t have a dominant car, and failed to keep Hamilton without assistance.
I’m thinking he may not be over the hill yet.
Rahim.RG
8th December 2024, 4:58
I think both Mercedes and Lewis are going to do really well without each other. Time for a change. Time to move on. Hope he pulls a Brazil 2021 today.
SPArtacus
8th December 2024, 10:59
A prima donna like Lewis + the media scrutiny he brings are never a good pairing for a team trying to rebuild their way back to the top. They’ll constantly take one step forward and two back in their desperation to placate them, which in turn just makes things worse. Also, in Lewis’ case especially, it’s just natural to want a change of scenery. It probably feels dull by now being with the same team and same people for so long. We already get the same sense with Max and RBR. The second they no longer have a car that can compete for wins is the second everything will far apart and he’ll leave.