Toto Wolff did not hide his joy after the finish of the Austrian Grand Prix, his home race. The director of Mercedes F1, winner today with George Russell, is pleased that the British driver has placed himself in a good position to take advantage of the clash between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
“I think George has done a great job of staying within reach.” Wolff told Sky F1. “It was a third place on the pace, but when the two started fighting at the front we thought things could get ugly!”
As for the victory, he confirms that it is good for the team: “It’s been a long time! We’ve had some very difficult times but we’re coming back, the car is getting better and better. We were two tenths short of a lap today but we had to be there, and George was there to take advantage of it. It’s been good.”
Lewis Hamilton had more bad luck, as Wolff points out: “It was the penalty that was tough at the first corner, having to give way to Sainz, and the 5-second penalty was tough but that’s the rule. And the two-tenths because of the damage didn’t help .”
“One of the dumbest things I’ve done in F1!”
Asked by Canal+ about his intervention on the radio at the time of the collision in the lead, to which Russell responded curtly, the Austrian recognizes that his timing was very bad in speaking to his driver.
“It’s seriously one of the stupidest things I’ve done in 12 years of Formula 1! I saw that the two touched each other, I pressed the button while he braked to go from 320 km/h to almost zero I’m embarrassed, but we were all excited to see victory looming.”
Can Mercedes compete for victory on a regular basis? Wolff hopes so, with developments to come from the next GP at Silverstone: “I think we’re getting closer, the last two or three races Ferrari was not competitive.”
“But there are four strong teams, Max is above everyone but Norris was close. We hope to have performance on the car at Silverstone, we bring evolutions and we hope to play with our own pace.”
