As the weekend progressed in Austin, Texas, it became increasingly clear that Red Bull had a good chance of winning. Pole position went to Max Verstappen and despite an overtake by Lewis Hamilton at the start of the race, the Dutchman won. Toto Wolff is firmly convinced that Mercedes could have won the race.
“I certainly think we could have won a victory,” the Mercedes team boss explains to RacingNews365, among others. “We were in the lead and had a lot of speed on the hard tires but somehow we have to see how the weekend changed from Friday to Sunday.”
During the first free practice, Mercedes looked very strong, although the racing stable later admitted that Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas drove with a boosted engine position. In the third free practice and qualifying, it became clear that Red Bull could deliver more competition than expected at the Circuit of the Americas.
Wolff wants investigation at Mercedes
According to Wolff, something went wrong, although the team is still in the dark where exactly this happened. “Where did we get it wrong? How did it go wrong? What went right? There’s plenty of room for discussion, positive discussion about what we can learn from the weekend in the United States.”
The Mercedes team boss has to admit that the race weekend in Austin was not only lost due to possible mistakes at the German racing stable. “Verstappen’s driving skills were also impressive. Especially in his last stint, you could see that he had to focus on tire management, so that he could have some left at the end of the race.”
“We were already running behind as the car wasn’t fast enough in the first stint on the medium tyres. We couldn’t just pop in for an early pit stop, the data didn’t seem like we could finish the race if we had gone in earlier,” said Wolff.
In the final phase of the race Hamilton could almost make an attempt to overtake Verstappen. “This was brilliantly executed, but it just wasn’t close enough,” said Wolff. “If we had two more laps in the race, we might have succeeded. But it is what it is, we can now only congratulate Red Bull on their pit stops,” the Austrian concludes.
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