October 24, (THEWILL) – Toto Wolff of Mercedes AMG Petronas has admitted that the Mercedes Formula One team might not have finished the US Grand Prix if it had not taken precautions to deal with the bumps on the Austin circuit.
After the cars bottomed out on the track bumps during practise, Wolff said the team was forced to take precautions to avoid “massacre.”
A cracked wing was discovered on Max Verstappen’s car at Red Bull Racing in a similar situation.
The Milton Keynes team was able to strengthen parts on both of its cars with the permission of the FIA ahead of Saturday’s qualifying session.
“So what we did is that the car was bottoming out quite heavy, and that breaks the car,” said Wolff. “So we took some mitigating steps to not break it, or massacre it that hard, in order to survive the race.
“Definitely a compromise for going faster on the track, but maybe a necessity to actually finish.”
Lewis Hamilton was beaten to pole by Verstappen in Saturday’s qualifying session, while his teammate Valtteri Bottas finished fourth. The Finn will start Sunday’s race from ninth due to a five-place penalty for a power unit change.
Wolff also admitted that Mercedes had fallen behind its main competitor. Despite the fact that he hinted at compromises caused by the car changes, he insisted that the team had not reached a conclusion as to why.
“Well, not yet. We have lost performance from Friday to qualifying, clearly, relative performance. We don’t know yet where that is. And we haven’t got the right explanations yet, but clearly, we haven’t met our expectations.”
Wolff did say, however, that on race day, as on other occasions this year, fortune could swing either way: “So if you look at the pure performance picture, both Red Bulls look very strong, and probably on paper, they are the cars that are ahead.
“But we’ve seen many Sundays that took a very different direction because of the start scenario, or DNFs. And that’s why anything goes tomorrow.
“And even though I tend to always say well the qualifying result is the result at the race, thank God it’s not the case, and there is ground we can still conquer tomorrow. And hopefully get Valtteri back to sharp end of the grid.”
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
