Max Verstappen has won a third consecutive world championship with Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have had yet another difficult season with Mercedes.
Despite Toto Wolff’s critical remarks following the Brazilian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton insisted he was “proud” of his Mercedes team.
Unsurprisingly, Max Verstappen emerged victorious at Interlagos on Sunday, recording his 17th win of the year. Fernando Alonso finished third, followed by Lando Norris in second. George Russell did not finish the race, and Hamilton finished in eighth place, indicating that Mercedes had a difficult day.
Following the race on Sunday, Mercedes CEO drooped over his team and let the media know how he felt. With Ferrari only 20 points behind Mercedes in second place in the Constructors’ Championship, it has been another difficult season for the once-dominant team.
Hamilton demonstrated class by complimenting Mercedes’ behind-the-scenes crew, despite Wolff’s howling. “One thing the car is really unpredictable,” he said to Sky Sports F1. It feels good for one weekend, then bad for one session, and so on.
“We’ll definitely go over things and see things we should have done differently, but it’s challenging after just one practice session.
“But I’m still proud of the team, they still came here and did their work, they hold their head up high and that’s what we have to continue to do. Just keep pushing forward. Two more races with this thing. Hopefully no more driving it.”
Yet Wolff couldn’t hold back his anger. He told the same TV channel: “(It was) an inexcusable performance. There are no words for that. That car finished second last week and the week before and whatever we did to it was horrible. Lewis survived out there but George…
“I can only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing. So it shows how difficult the car is, it’s on a knife’s edge. We’ve got to develop it better for next year because it can’t be that in seven days of finishing on the podium with a solid, quick car, you’re nowhere.
“We’re clearly not world champions on Sprint race weekends. We did some good work here at the track to get it done, but it still doesn’t explain what went wrong. The car drove like it was on three wheels and not four.”
Mercedes haven’t won a single race this season and achieved just one victory last year. The German team, who won eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships between 2014 and 2021, haven’t endured a winless season since 2011.
“This car doesn’t deserve to win,” Wolff continued. The most crucial thing, in my opinion, is to recover from the last two races and keep going. Then, we should look forward to seeing what we can accomplish in Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi, and other new tracks. However, today’s performance was… I have no words.
Straight line speed was a problem, but it wasn’t most likely the primary one. The main reason, in my opinion, was that we were killing the tires—eating them up in a matter of laps—because we were unable to turn corners quickly enough with the larger wing.”
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