Mercedes and George Russell did not have the race to remember in Sao Paulo on Sunday. As an unfortunate DNF ended the British driver‘s race prematurely, he asked the team to sit down and discuss what went wrong in the recently concluded race in Brazil.
Talking about this, the Mercedes star said as per Sky Sports, “The car was just slow this weekend. The tyres were sliding around and I think what we were doing was the maximum. Something doesn’t quite add up, you just don’t suddenly lose a second’s worth of performance and go from a podium fighting car to just fighting for points.”
Tough day but we’ll regroup, work through what went wrong, and come back stronger for the final two races. pic.twitter.com/ZfL0izE6zX
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 5, 2023
H added, “We really need to sit down and understand, but clearly a massive one-off this week.” Admittedly, the entire race weekend had been an event to forget for the Silver Arrows. From the qualification to the Sprint race and then the main race, Mercedes failed to live up to their expectations everywhere.
As George Russell failed to finish the race and defend his crown from last year, he asked the team for a discussion. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton wants to put the race in the past and move forward.
Toto Wolff and Lewis Hamilton look into the future amid rough W14 days
After the W14 failed miserably in Brazil, Hamilton stated that he wanted to get done with the car already and focus on next year’s challenger. This is solely because the seven-time world champion did not have good times driving it around Sao Paulo.
At the same time, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff took all the responsibility for the car and promised to deliver a better one to Hamilton and Russell next year to be more competitive.
Lewis finishes the São Paulo GP in P8. George was forced to retire with PU issues. pic.twitter.com/3ete80SdtA
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) November 5, 2023
In this regard, the Austrian boss stated, “It shows how difficult the car is, it’s on a knife’s edge. You’ve got to develop that better for next year.” Nevertheless, Mercedes are still in a formidable position to finish the reason.
Toto Wolff’s team is in P2 in the Constructors’ championship and they need two good races if they want to keep their place from Ferrari. They have 382 points after 20 races, 20 points more than the Prancing Horse.
