Toto Wolff wasn’t surprised by Lewis Hamilton’s poor performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Hamilton was forced to start from the pit lane on Sunday as Mercedes chose to accept a penalty for installing a new engine in his car, exceeding their season quota. The Brit battled to claw his way back through the pack during the race.
He would eventually finish ninth, but only earned points because podium contenders Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez wrecked out in the last circuits. Hamilton was displeased with the race and failed to recognize team manager Wolff over team radio after the checkered flag.
Wolff was not surprised by Hamilton’s discontent, considering the seven-time world champion is now in his final seven races with the Silver Arrows. Wolff assured that things would improve for the 39-year-old.
“We thought it would be a miserable race since Baku is so difficult to pass, and that is exactly what it was. “The moment you get close, you overheat the tyres and go backwards, which is what happened to him,” he explained.
“I believe there are two tough ideas, and we examined them at length. One option is to simply swallow the tablet here because we don’t know where it would have gone beginning with P7, and then do it in Austin.
“But we believe Austin represents an opportunity, so that was the decision. I’m not sure whether it was right or wrong, but it was a close call. We are currently heading to Singapore. We’ll go over the data from this weekend and try to enhance the car balance for a better weekend there.”
Hamilton struggled to disguise his displeasure after Sunday’s race, despite Wolff’s promise of better times ahead. The British driver will join Ferrari at the end of the season, but he is now focusing entirely on Mercedes.
“This was a challenging race. We had a fantastic day on Friday, but the rest of the weekend was challenging. We made certain modifications before Saturday that didn’t work out, but we had to deal with them,” he remarked.
“We also knew it would be difficult to overcome today. Despite the long straight, it is difficult to navigate the second sector. Franco Colapinto and Oliver Bearman, whom I was racing for the majority of the afternoon, performed an excellent job.
“It’s nice to see young people like them succeed. Their first and second races were really outstanding. Regardless of how difficult my race was, the positives are that George ran well and scored some valuable points for the team.
“We also have a lot of data to sort through ahead of Singapore. We have more changes planned before the end of the year, so we aim to be closer to those at the front soon.”
