Wolff apologizes to Hamilton after Mercedes’ ‘stupid’ mistake

Toto Wolff apologized to Lewis Hamilton after mistake “idiot” committed by Mercedes during Q1 of the 2024 F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion’s hopes of finishing in style with the German team were quickly dashed this Saturday when he was eliminated at the end of the first part of qualifying. While he was launched into a very late final attempt and encountered traffic on his lap, Hamilton was also unlucky when a pin torn off by Kevin Magnussen at turn 14 stuck under his W15, hampering his performance in the final turns.

For Wolff, in addition to the keel, it was above all the timing chosen by the team to bring out its drivers which caused an untenable situation even though Hamilton had shown a promising pace for the race: “I just have to apologize to Lewis, and also to everyone in the team who worked so hard to get him to a strong finish.”said the Austrian for Sky Sports.

“He was the fastest with the type of settings we chose on the car, also to experiment for next year, and we totally let him down. It’s a stupid mistake not to go out earlier in “Inexcusable. I’ve rarely been so devastated by what happened. Maybe that sums up the last races we had with him. But it’s worse, because it was just stupid.”

“I think we were lucky that they both made their way through the traffic”added Wolff. “And maybe without the keel it would have worked. But we don’t take as many risks in a Q1 where we easily had the pace to get by.”

“Our best driver of all time, the most prestigious and the best driver in this discipline, is eliminated in Q1 because we made a mistake. A dilettante mistake which does not spoil all the heritage we have with him, but I can only apologize to him.”

Hamilton said he was aiming for the podium before suffering this Q1 elimination. Wolff believes that this prospect is now completely unrealistic, as he will start from 16th on the grid. “He had the pace. We could have claimed a podium. He was P3 this morning [en EL3]and now it’s practically impossible from this far away.”

With Jonathan Noble