Toto Wolff admits that he showed lackluster performance in Monaco and that Baku had its “toughest” time as Mercedes Formula 1 boss, and calls his latest form “unacceptable”.
Mercedes experienced difficult weekends on both street circuits, scoring only seven out of a possible 88 points that enabled Red Bull to pull away in both championships.
After losing a potential podium in Monaco after Valtteri Bottas’ devious pit stop and poor strategy didn’t support Lewis Hamilton’s progress in the field, Mercedes moved on in Baku.
Mercedes was a second behind the pace on Friday before Hamilton secured a front row seat through a drastic turn in qualifying. But in the race, Bottas struggled to 12th place while Hamilton missed victory after accidentally pressing the wrong button on his steering wheel when restarting, resulting in a stall.
A frustrated Wolff believes Mercedes have underperformed in the last two laps and urges his team to return to their “A” game at the French Grand Prix.
“I think there are a lot of things that are not going as smoothly as they have been in recent years,” said Wolff, quoted by Motorsport.com.
“Operationally, we are not in our A-Game. Through qualifying and the race, we didn’t really find the car’s sweet spot, a fast qualifying car and a fast racing car.
“There is just so much that we have to improve that after this call I just want to get started to make sure that we can actually compete for this championship.
“You can’t lose any more points like we did in Monaco and here. It’s just not acceptable to all of us. “
Wolff said he had to deal with the disappointment in Monaco and his battles in Baku, which presented him before his greatest challenge since joining Mercedes in 2013.
When asked whether these were the toughest weeks he could remember as a Mercedes team boss, Wolff said: “Yes, these are the toughest. Because having no performance in Monaco and Valtteri, who would certainly have made it on the podium to need a pit stop of 36 hours, is not a really great achievement, measured against the standards that we set ourselves.
“Then the car that almost all of the sessions were [in Baku] nowhere. Then, to be honest, it was okay to finish third and even try to make it through.
“But it is simply not acceptable that we do not bring the car into a high-performance position after the start or after the pit stops. We only lose seconds and seconds. “
Max Verstappen’s retirement in the closing stages meant the championship remained unchanged, but Wolff said Hamilton’s mistake and poor performance in Baku were particularly hard to take.
“To be honest, we’re both destroyed,” said Wolff. “For him as a driver you obviously have it, it’s so close and then everything is gone.
“We just have to be the best, the best of us and the best we have. And we didn’t give the drivers a competitive package this weekend. It was far from a competitive package.
“That’s the frustration. It’s not just the incident in the end that is frustrating. Overall, it does not meet our own expectations. All of us together: Lewis, the engineers, me, everyone on the team. “
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