Toto Wolff Admits Mercedes are a Shadow of Their Former Dominant Self

Mercedes is going through some gloomy days, enduring two horrid weekends in Monaco and the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Team boss, Toto Wolff, has acknowledged their drop in performance and hopes thing run smoothly as they did before.

In Monte Carlo, Lewis Hamilton finished seventh, while teammate Valtteri Bottas had to retire due to a botched pit stop. They hoped the race in Baku would be better, but it wasn’t. Hamilton placed fifteenth and Bottas came twelfth and failed to bring home any points to the Silver Arrows.

Toto Wolff wishes things would get better for Mercedes

As quoted by RacingNews365, Wolff said, “I think there’s lots of things that are not running smoothly as they have in the past few years.

“Operationally, it’s not our A game. We haven’t found the really sweet spot of the car through qualifying and race, having a quick qualifying car and a quick race.”

“There’s just so much that we need to improve that I just want to get on it right now in order to make sure that we were actually able to compete for this championship. We can’t continue losing points, like we’ve done in Monaco and here, it’s just not acceptable for all of us,” Wolff concluded.

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Hamilton didn’t make a mistake, says Wolff

After Max Verstappen crashed, the session got red-flagged, and the race had to be restarted. Hamilton was in second place with Sergio Perez ahead of him. This gave the perfect opportunity to grab a win for the team. Only two laps were remaining between him and victory.

However, in his attempt to take the lead from Perez, Hamilton’s brake failed and overshot turn 1 and went off into the run-off area. He fell from second to fifteenth on the grid in a matter of seconds. Instead of blaming his driver, Wolff defended the seven-time world champion.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Wolff said, “I just need to let him know that this wasn’t because of a mistake by him. He doesn’t make any mistakes. That is what you need to remember. I wouldn’t wish for anyone else to be in the car.”

Now after the lessons learned from Baku, the team hopes to better for the French Grand Prix. Will they bounce back or suffer the same fate in the next race as well?

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