Though Lewis Hamilton had a lot of momentum going into the summer break, things have now turned around once more.
Toto Wolff has cautioned that Mercedes’ problems at the Dutch Grand Prix were more complicated than a “simple set-up issue,” raising the possibility of a more serious issue that could impact George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in the remaining nine races of the season.
With Hamilton’s victory at the Belgian Grand Prix being the team’s third in four races, the Silver Arrows were, going into the summer break, the team to beat in many ways. However, they trailed McLaren, Red Bull, and Ferrari on Sunday at Zandvoort, finishing as the fourth fastest team on the track.
At the Dutch Grand Prix, Russell and Hamilton finished in seventh and eighth place, respectively. More worrisome was the fact that the winner of the race, Lando Norris, outran the field and won handily, leaving the former more than 44 seconds behind.
Hamilton is unfortunate in that there might not be a simple solution before he leaves Mercedes. Wolff evaluated the team’s difficulties and said, “I don’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly because we’re going to look at it in the coming days, and hopefully try to find clues in the data.”
As I previously stated, what specifically went wrong—was it the track or the set-up? Was it the carpet we installed in the vehicle? Was this everything combined? So maybe we can work things out until Monza and start to compete. However, there is a significant difference in performance between P1, P2, and P7, P8. In my perspective, that wasn’t a straightforward setup choice.
“I think the car, these cars are sometimes a surprise box,” he continued. The car that placed first and second three weeks ago doesn’t look like the six podiums we’ve had in a row. first, at least, in merit.
“A result like this really can’t happen unless some significant factor is involved. We must examine it in the coming days in order to get to Monza. Was it something we added to the car that didn’t make a difference? Did we design something poorly into the vehicle?
Hamilton, who wants to increase his season total of two victories before leaving for Ferrari, will be concerned about Wolff’s lack of consistency. Despite his disastrous Dutch Grand Prix weekend, the seven-time world champion found solace in his performance on Sunday.
“Today was a lot better,” he said to Sky Sports F1. “Unfortunately, I was regressing too much while still making progress and moving forwards. I believe that I would have finished at least where George was, if not further ahead.
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