Mercedes has to 'lose with humility' says Toto Wolff
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that his team needs to “lose with humility” after Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari beat Lewis Hamilton to victory in Australia.
Hamilton had to settle for second after starting from pole, while teammate Valtteri Bottas was third. Wolff was shown on TV banging his fists on the table after Hamilton lost the lead.
“I was probably very emotional during the race,” he said. “That's part of it. Losing is always personality building and I'd much rather win than lose but it's part of Formula 1. We had an exceptional run the last three years. You cannot expect to continue forever. It was clear the moment was going to come where we need to lose with humility and accept that somebody else had done a better job, and that's what happened today. They had done a great job and Sebastian is a deserved race winner.
“It's personality-building... but I think you just lose some and you win some. And we have been very fortunate in the last three years that we won most of them. And now it's about accepting that today Ferrari beat us. We will come out stronger. We didn't have great testing and we didn't have a great Sunday today, but we will leave no stone unturned in order to win more.”
The race was turned on its head when Hamilton made an early pit stop from the lead, and then got caught behind Max Verstappen, allowing Vettel to jump in front when he pitted six laps later.
“The Ferrari was the quicker car, the way Sebastian held on to Lewis, in his gearbox. We were pushing flat out and we were just not able to pull away. There was the risk of the undercut and we also thought that the tires wouldn't last any more. And, all that led us to the decision to pit to avoid the undercut. And then coming out behind Max, who was fighting his own race, just lost us the race.”
Defending the decision to pit, Wolff said: “You're trying to take on board all the information you have, what you see in terms of tire temperatures and grip levels and sliding - and then of course how the driver perceives it. And all of that leads to a decision. And in that case it was probably a couple of laps too early.
“It is never a single individual's decision when to pit. It's the sum of the information we have available. And all that leads to a decision. And at that stage all that information led us to the decision that we think there's a risk of an undercut and even considering that there is a risk of Verstappen, Raikkonen out there we would rather pit. So it was all of us.
“If you look back and say 'what could we have done better' - we could have done better, for sure. Would it have been enough to win? I don't know. Sebastian could have attempted the undercut at any stage and it could have come out the same way. So we need to understand why we didn't have the pace at the beginning of the race, in these conditions, and improve from there.”
Wolff admitted that the team has some work to do on tire management.
“I believe that these tires have a narrow window, and you need to keep them in that window in order for them to perform well. If you're bellow the window or above the window, you lose performance. So that is different to the last year's, it needs a new calibration for all of us and understanding of the tires.”
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