Wolff: We were ready to be disqualified

In the first practice on the Mexican circuit, the Mercedes team did not surprise with its speed – Lewis Hamilton showed the 11th fastest time, Frederic Vesti, driving the car of George Russell, the 19th.

After the Toto session, Wolff explained on Sky Sports what this was about, and also gave his view on the situation that occurred in Austin that led to Hamilton’s disqualification.

Toto Wolff: “It was an interesting session, where we completed many points of our test program at the beginning. All this obviously affects the round results, but it is a necessary part of the job. We did a lot of different measurements, including experimenting with the ride height, which is related to the control bar, so we’re fine with the injury we suffered in Austin. (laughs)

Overall the session went well, including some tasks assigned to Frederic Vesti. The regulations require that we give young riders the opportunity to train, everyone is obliged to do so and since Frederic was also testing certain parts, this was reflected in the lap times and he was not in the most favorable position. But this was part of the tasks we carried out today to refine the car.”

Of course, during the interview with Sky Sports, Wolff was asked to comment on Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification in Austin, where he was asked this question: did the team understand that they were taking a risk by choosing the level of ground clearance of Lewis Hamilton’s car ? This ultimately led to excessive wear of the control rod on the underside of the seven-time world champion’s car.

“No,” replied the Mercedes team leader. “But the problem is that when the weekend program includes the Saturday sprint, you put the cars in a closed park and you can no longer adjust the settings. On Saturday we thought the ground clearance of Lewis’ car was about to be acceptable, but we decided there was still some margin.

We had a new underbody, which allowed us to increase downforce, and perhaps the control bar was damaged during Saturday’s sprint. Overall, the location of the stars in the sky that weekend was unfavorable for our team.

The wear of the steering wheel was also affected by the fact that the new bottom provided an increase in downforce, which in itself is a positive point, but at the same time the car stuck to bumps more strongly. But even if we had foreseen such an outcome, we would still have done exactly the same thing: we would not have adjusted the ground clearance, because if we had broken the parc ferme rule we would have had to start from the pit lane.

Yes, we were ready to be disqualified, because we made a mistake in choosing the settings, but we fought for the win, while our second car, despite being in 3rd position, ended up finishing 25 seconds behind the leader . In situations like this, I will always be willing to choose the disqualification scenario.

However, this was a specific situation that could only happen in Austin, and was made worse by the fact that it was a sprint weekend. But from now on we will be more careful, because we have collected all the information from the past weekend and will take this experience into account.

In general I don’t like the sprint format, it’s a bit strange, and at the same time the intensity of the intrigue of Sunday’s Grand Prix is ​​reduced, because everyone already has a rough idea of ​​the balance of power. If it were up to me, I would give up sprint racing completely.”