Coming off a pole and podiums in Montreal and Barcelona, things were looking good for Mercedes, but to add another win to the team’s record so soon was quite unexpected for Toto Wolff, who saw George Russell take the top step in Spielberg after Max Verstappen and Lando Norris collided in a scrap for the win. A scrap Wolff hoped would end the way it did.
“I think we all are trying to be rational and we were on route for P3. And that is where the base of the car was, and what George was able to extract, and that was a solid result.
“And then, obviously, you see these two in the front, driving each other hard, and we know they are really good friends, and that was always, that was fun to watch. [That] is how I perceived it at that stage, but, obviously, then it got a bit more fierce, and at a certain stage we said: ‘well, it would be possible that they collide.’
“And then it literally happened, both of them a puncture, couldn’t believe what we saw.”
The Mercedes boss acknowledged the bit of luck they received, but was on the other hand very pleased with the consistency his team is showing, as they are clearly the third fastest team at the moment.
“On pace, we were third quickest car,” Wolff said. “And we’ve been this for the last three weekends, and that is very encouraging, to see that upward trend, and the consolidation of the trend.
“But then racing happens on Sunday, and sometimes we have been on the receiving end, and today we benefited from the incident in the front, and it’s just good to have that win in the pocket this year.
“It means there’s four teams that won races this year, and it’s been just one year, 2022, where we haven’t won a race since 2012, and that is good to know, and certainly big momentum now in the team to go to a point where we’re able on real performance to fight for the win, and I think we will be.”
And where one driver was having a great drive capped off with a victory, the other was struggling througout the afternoon, bringing a damaged W15 home in fourth. Lewis Hamilton also picked up a time penalty for crossing the pit-entry line, and had to surrender his place to Carlos Sainz after overtaking the Spaniard off-track.
“It was one of these bad days, I think. Pretty decent start, and then turn one, lap one… You know, giving the position back was a harsh thing, but it was pretty clear that we would be getting a ten-second penalty if not doing it, and from the start, we started spiralling.
“He pushed it very hard on the entry,” the Austrian explained Lewis’ penalty. “You can see how much he pushed and lost the rear, and then obviously the next penalty came about.
“On top of that, we had floor damage because of the kerb right, which I guess most people have, but his was extensive, it was two and a half tenths in parts that broke off on the kerb.
“So, yeah, all reason to be angry about it, or upset about it.”
George Russell’s win almost came undone when his boss yelled some motivation over the radio, right at the moment the young Briton was approaching a heavy braking zone. One of the points on track one would not communicate over the radio in order to not disturb the driver. Russell wasn’t too pleased, and Wolff was apologetic afterwards.
“This one is the single dumbest thing I’ve done in 12 years in Mercedes,” he said. “I will be forever ashamed of this, because you look at where you message the driver, you don’t do it on braking or in high-speed corners.
“But I didn’t look on the GPS where he was, I just saw these two taking each other out, and we anticipated it and then just emotionally pushed the button and said we can win this.
“I could have taken him out with that message. Imagine how that would have felt. I’m emotional, I enjoy us doing well, and I enjoy seeing Lewis and George doing well. I was just carried away with that situation, and I think that’s what he said afterwards. It’s seriously embarrassing.”
The incident between Verstappen and Norris stirred up quite some controversy, and when asked whether he thought the situation could have been prevented if Verstappen was penalised more strictly in 2021, when Hamilton sometimes was on the receiving end of the Dutchman’s uncompromising driving style, Wolff unequivocally rejected that notion.
“I don’t think you can take this conclusion,” he answered. “It’s so long [ago].”
“I haven’t seen the race, to be honest. I haven’t seen Lando’s and Max’s race. I haven’t seen how all of that came about.”
“I first need to watch it before having an opinion, but I didn’t see that as a big consequence of 2021 not having been managed well to what has happened in 2024. I don’t think there’s a correlation.“
