Bitter Sunday
Victory, realistically, was out of reach. Both Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton had already hinted it yesterday, albeit with different accents. Hope to be able to collect a podium placement, possibly on the second step, was however strong at Mercedes before the start of the Hungarian GP. Instead, if from the rear George Russell has managed to put together a great comeback, going up from 18th to sixth, Lewis Hamilton took the crawfish step. The British champion got the start wrong and in the space of a few corners he fell from first to fourth, thus ruining his entire race.
Wolff disappointment
However, even the management of strategies did not fully satisfy the number one of the Mercedes wall who, after the race, speaking with journalists, did not hide his great disappointment: “We had the second fastest car today, but the results don’t show that. It is very disappointing and we want to understand what happened. George made a good comeback up to the Ferraris. We were too cautious in the first laps with the pace, but we feared degradation”. Who realistically has never been in the sights of Mercedes has been Max Verstappenran away when the traffic lights went out and then reappeared at the end of the race on the top step of the podium.
BoP? No thank you
Wolff sportingly had to acknowledge theincredible superiority shown by Red Bull also on this Sunday and explained that he did not consider it possible to introduce a Balance of Performance in F1, as happens in the endurance championship: “Verstappen in front was probably administering and despite this the gap from the second was significant. We have to accept that Red Bull has done a better job than the others. We have all seen that in the second part of the race Lewis’ pace was very fast in the second part, without considering the Red Bulls. This is because the balance of the car was better. This is a meritocratic sport and we cannot introduce a BoP like in the WEC. What we are seeing is certainly not good for the show, but we just have to work hard to get back into the fight“.
The example of McLaren
However, Wolff was also critical of the suggestion made a few weeks ago by Lewis Hamilton to force the teams to halt development of the car after mid-season. The case of McLaren in fact demonstrates how it is possible, with hard work, to effectively overturn hierarchies. “There is no need to block the development of the car, because we have seen how McLaren managed to recover ground by unlocking the potential of the car. For 2024 we have to change a lot and in the design of that car we are already taking interesting paths, leaving no stone unturned. We will come back strong“.
#Hamilton #podium #Wolff #disappointed #FormulaPassion