Lewis Hamilton shows off his impressive surfing skills
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff admitted that his team made a “catastrophic” error at the Dutch Grand Prix that will see him launch an investigation into their plan for the race. Neither of the Silver Arrows were able to get on the podium, as Lewis Hamilton finished sixth and George Russell failed to reach the end of the race after a collision with Lando Norris.
Russell hit out at the team over their radio mid-race having started P3 and had expected to be challenging for a podium spot, but after waiting to change their tyres as a result of the heavy rain, fell to the back of the grid.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Wolff explained: “I think we stayed out catastrophically too long. We got it completely wrong and it is annoying because the car had real pace. From there on, it was just recovering as good as we could. I would rather have a fast race car and a mediocre result even though it hurts. It is bittersweet because the result is just really bad.
“We saw at the end on the inters, George had maximum speed and Lewis was right behind [Carlos] Sainz so we could have been much further ahead, but it’s still bittersweet because the result is really bad.
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“We will review thoroughly and the situation is never one person or one department, it is the communications between driver, pitwall, strategy and then all of us take a decision – it was absolutely sub-par from all of us and that includes me.”
Hamilton admitted that the team “paid the price” for their mistake in not reacting quickly enough at Zandvoort. “I was the only one on the medium tyre and I wanted to be offset to the people around me, not everyone on the grid,” he said. “That rain came and as a team we made the wrong decision. Ultimately, it was the team’s call. We paid the price for that.
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“We came out last and after that we kept chasing, head down. It was a really good example of when you fall or stumble, to get back up and keep trying. Every time I had to pit, I came out behind and kept chasing.”
Russell echoed his team-mate’s sentiments, adding: “It is a bit of a shame of an afternoon. We had such a fast car today but the decisions and the weather went against us so we need to look into what we could have done better because clearly we missed a big opportunity today.
“We were expecting the rain to stay for one or two minutes and it stayed for 10 minutes. I thought I could brave it out for a lap or two more if it was only one or two more minutes but it wasn’t. We would rather have a fast car on a bad day than the opposite but it is a big missed opportunity today.”
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