“We’re leaving this race with a slap on the wrist”- Mercedes bow down to Red Bull’s pace at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull dominated the final race of the season by taking over 37 points from the final result, to end their season on a high note, and Mercedes despite accepting the defeat seemed gutted.
The reflection of this claim can be found in Toto Wolff’s recent post-race interview, where he said that the defeat against their fierce rivals is a slap on the wrist.
“You can see that everybody has weaknesses, and we weren’t on our A-game this weekend,” Wolff said, as per the Motorsport. “That’s simply a fact. Red Bull won fair and square.
“You can see that Albon also had a very good race, so they have a very good race car, and shows that when their car is in the right place, both drivers do a really good job.”
“Probably Albon’s pace was quicker than us by the end. They could have been well ahead, and even worse for us. We’re leaving this race with a slap on the wrist. It wasn’t a great weekend for us. It was a car that has never let us down all year, maybe apart from this last weekend.”
Tyre management cost them the race
Toto Wolff has further told that the tyre management was an issue for them, as the safety car forced them to switch to the hard compounds, which they believed wouldn’t make till the end.
“He and Lewis were looking after the tyres a lot because it was not clear the hard would last until the end, and there was more pace in both of them,” Wolff said.
“You can see at the end, we saw through sector one, that our car wasn’t simply turning around five and six, and the last sector wasn’t great. We just simply had an understeering car all day today.
“We had a car that is good on Friday, but not good on Saturday. We tried both directions, weakened the rear, none of that helped. I think somehow we didn’t get it right.”
