Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff admitted he was surprised by the performance of his team’s W13 after qualifying in Austria on Friday, as session where both cars ended up in the barriers.
The eight-time Formula 1 Constructors’ Champions seem to have carried their strong form Silverstone over to the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, as during qualifying on Friday, they were featuring at the sharp end of the timing screens, Lewis Hamilton having a bit of an edge over George Russell, and all this considering they haven’t fared well historically in Austria, even on their dominant pre-2022 seasons.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after qualifying, Wolff reflected saying: “Inside of me, it’s like boiling. It’s just Formula 1, it’s not politics or any big stuff.
“No, so having said that, yeah we’re surprised,” he admitted. “Spielberg was always a race where we were struggling, in the best of our days, it wasn’t very good, so we were not expecting another step in performance.
Things are slowly coming together for Mercedes
“But slowly things come together. Interestingly, not like you would think in Formula 1, there’s one silver bullet, you’re bolting on a wing and it goes. But it’s tiny little steps, fantastic work from the engineers. I’m happy to see that.” he explained.
But with both drivers binning their cars in Q3, Mercedes’ dream return of performance turned into a nightmare, as they lost the chance to capitalize on the improvement made.
Wolff, however, doesn’t want his drivers to be so hard on themselves, he said: “I don’t know, but these two should never beat themselves up because of the situation of crashing out.
“We’ve given them a car that wasn’t on par for 10 races in a row, and now we’re starting to come to terms and we’re able to drive in front, and then it can happen that you just lose the car.
“I’d rather have a fast car and then a qualifying like this than not having the pace to be in the top four,” Wolff maintained.
Most important thing from today: Lewis and George were okay ?❤️
Now, ? on making up ground in tomorrow’s Sprint! pic.twitter.com/IArlOO2IMe
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) July 8, 2022