'A Bad Race That Summarizes Our Season': Mercedes Team Principal Reacts To Las Vegas GP
F1Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 20:00
Team principal Toto Wolff explained why the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix summarizes the whole season for Mercedes in his eyes.
Toto Wolff stated after the race he thought the pace of Silver Arrows might have been on par with Ferrari. However, both Mercedes drivers got involved in collisions and unfortunate circumstances, which destroyed the race for them.
Mercedes made great progress from the previous race in Sao Paulo, as the F1 team principal said the car was quick enough for the podium in Las Vegas.
However, it still was a bad race in the eyes of the Austrian, and he thought it summarized the whole season for Mercedes. As quoted by speedcafe.com, Wolff said after the race:
"A bad race which summarises our season – a quick car that is able to fight for a podium. Look at the pace in free air and we had the pace of the leaders. When Lewis had no traffic, that was pretty much where he was racing in terms of lap times."
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Lewis Hamilton got involved in an incident on lap one when Carlos Sainz locked up his wheels going into turn one and crashed into the Mercedes of the seven-time World Champion on the outside line.
While he managed to recover from the lap one incident fairly well, the 38-year-old then collided with Oscar Piastri a few laps later which resulted in a puncture for both drivers.
George Russell was in a very good position starting from third place on the grid, but his progress was undone by an unfortunate collision with Max Verstappen, for which he also received a five-second penalty. Wolff added:
"But he was involved in two accidents, and then George with Max. As I said, it summarises the season. You can’t win (like that), you can’t be at the front."
On one hand, Mercedes had a great pace this weekend, which is positive news for the team. On the other hand, finishing in P7 and P8 means Ferrari now caught up with Silver Arrows in the fight for second place in the Constructors' Championship. Wolff concluded:
"If we had more…you make your own luck and we had more bad luck, so seventh and eighth. We could have had two cars on the podium but they weren’t."
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