For the first time in many years, Lewis Hamilton did not qualify for Q3 of a Grand Prix, the United States, due to the poor performance of his car. This season's Mercedes is not the one with which he won multiple pole positions, victories and championships. Now it is the turn of Toto Wolff's team to suffer, who is not shy about describing the car as "really bad, worse than he would have thought".
The crisis in Mercedes is total. At least it seems that way if you take into account the car's performance in qualifying in Miami. It is true that in Baku Hamilton managed to get on the podium, but yesterday the problems returned. The team boss did not mince words to lament the poor performance of the car and, what is worse, the total lack of understanding of why it is so slow.
"I don't like (Russell) finishing sixth," Wolff fumed. "It's the lack of understanding of what's going on that makes this car such a nasty job." And he continued: "I think the car is not a good car, it is not a good car and I couldn't even pinpoint what the problem is," Wolff paused, searching for the right words. "It's everywhere."
"I would say the acting is just…really bad." The lack of performance and pace in Miami has left Wolff puzzled after a promising start to the season that included a second-place finish for Hamilton at the Australian Grand Prix.
Wolff, who teaches a course at Harvard Business School, gave his car a failing grade and struggled to find even the slightest silver lining, saying things were worse than he thought.
"That's worse than I thought because it's been twenty months since we were last in Miami and the car is slightly better," Wolff said. "Maybe he's not rebounding, but that's the only thing that's better than last year," he said. "The car is not fast enough and we don't have any understanding of why," he concluded.
Hamilton also lamented the lack of pace but was more restrained in his criticism. "It was a difficult session," said the Briton. "We're not that fast so we really needed perfect laps, but it was difficult to get into the rhythm, at the beginning I had that problem with the car going slow in the last corner.
