Wolff Looking To 'Demonstrate' Mercedes's Real Pace In Barcelona

Thursday, 13 June 2024 at 22:00

Toto Wolff explained negative sentiment in Mercedes despite achieving its best result to date this year in Canada.

Mercedes F1 drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line in P3 and P4, respectively, during the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix.

They both achieved their own and their team's best result of the season so far, but their celebrations and moods didn't reflect it.

Why? Mercedes looked like a car that could definitely compete for the race victory in Canada, and in a way, it felt like a missed opportunity. Toto Wolff told the media after the race:

"Third and fourth is so much better than we had previously in the last few races, so that is good, but I think both drivers saw that there was more up for grabs."

"We could have gained a position or two, and that is why there is a kind of negative sentiment, but if you would have given them third and fourth before the weekend, they probably would have taken it."

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The seven-time World Champion was especially upset following the Grand Prix as he suggested it felt like one of his "worst drives." The 39-year-old looked fastest in all the practice sessions but failed in qualifying and had to start from P7.

And even after that, he could have had the opportunity to fight for podiums, but he himself said he made too many mistakes. Wolff said about Hamilton:

"I mean in FP3, Lewis put up a lap that was out of this world, and then his long run was stratospheric, galactical."

"There was a lot of pace but in qualifying, we seem to be very strong at the beginning and then lose a little bit of performance. Maybe we could have optimized it at the end, but the car was very quick."

Silver Arrows found a lot of pace in Canada, and Wolff is looking to prove during the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix that it wasn't just a track-specific one-off but rather a genuine step forward.

"But this track is very different to everything else, it is an outlier, so hopefully we can demonstrate that we have found genuine pace [in Spain]."