Austrian Optimism Prevails Post-Race. Toto Wolff, team principal of Mercedes F1, didn’t expect to compete with the top three teams at Imola today, but the Austrian remains satisfied with the narrowing gaps to the leaders, as he was after qualifying.
“The result doesn’t show it, but we are progressing towards where we want the car to be.”
“We’re over 30 seconds behind the fastest guys, and that’s a lot, with 6th and 7th places not being something we’re proud of. But we are getting closer bit by bit.”
“You can hear the frustration in my voice, but there is more to come, and these are the incremental and marginal gains we need to achieve. That’s how the sport goes.”
Why did you pit George Russell a second time? Was it for the fastest lap point?
“No… His lap times were getting slower, and our forecasts showed he wouldn’t make it to the end, and we didn’t want to lose the position to Perez.”
“The forecasts indicated we had three or four laps to react. It was great to get the fastest lap in the end because Alonso missed it. He tried but didn’t succeed, so it’s good for us.”
And why did Mercedes tell Russell that Hamilton wouldn’t let him pass?
“Lewis would probably have overtaken him anyway. The fact is we were racing for 6th and 7th places and we wanted to keep the Red Bull behind. It was a safety decision.”
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