Toto Wolff must be tearing his hair out watching Mercedes from Monaco after Red Bull claim constructors’ championship following Max Verstappen’s victory in Japanese Grand Prix
- Mercedes failed to follow up Singapore success as Verstappen wins in Suzuka
- Victory for the Dutchman sees Red Bull wrap up constructors’ championship
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Somewhere in Monaco, Toto Wolff is surely tearing his hair out.
It’s hard to imagine a heavier crash back down to earth than that which the Mercedes chief has suffered this week. To go from elation after his team’s strongest performance of the season in Singapore, in which Lewis Hamilton and George Russell boasted the fastest pace on the track, to the seven-time champion openly admitting that he ‘didn’t have a chance’ of winning here in Suzuka, is some comedown.
You wouldn’t blame Wolff if he spent the weekend recoiling behind his sofa as his British drivers toiled away 8300 miles east in Japan, all while recuperating from a knee surgery – spare a thought for the robust Austrian.
To add to his woes, Christian Horner is strutting the paddock, having hammered the final nail into Mercedes’ coffin after scooping the constructors’ championship. Max Verstappen got back to winning ways in Suzuka and moved another step closer to clinching his third world title, most likely in Qatar in two weeks’ time. He is a staggering 210 points ahead of Hamilton, his arch foe two years ago, in third position.
But, deep down, Wolff will know that his team had no business going toe-to-toe with Red Bull and their Dutch master this year.
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff missed the Japanese Grand Prix as he continues to recover from knee surgery
Max Verstappen got back to winning ways in Suzuka, moving 210 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ championship standings
Victory for Verstappen also wrapped up the constructors’ championship for Red Bull
How, then, have Mercedes gone from cloud nine to the depths of despair in just one week? The first warning signs were cast by Hamilton on a humid Thursday afternoon in Suzuka.
‘I would think that if they [Red Bull] are not 30 seconds ahead like they have been in the past, then something’s up,’ the seven-time world champion predicted, seemingly already defeated despite last week’s morale-boosting performance.
‘It’ll be interesting to see how the weekend goes. I hope we’ll be closer, and I hope they’re not as fast as the 30-second gap.’
Admittedly, there are matters that are out of Mercedes’ control. It’s no secret that their success in Singapore came down to a near-perfect race strategy coupled with a car brilliantly suited to Marina Bay’s magical circuit, as the W14 found pace on the slower parts of the track. It was always going to be a tall order to emulate that speed in Suzuka, where long, fast corners benefit Red Bull and McLaren.
But there are steps that can be taken to ensure that you can at least compete with your rivals. On Friday morning, there was the palpable sense that the car was simply thrown out on the track, followed by the realisation that the team had got the setup totally wrong, resulting in a frantic 24 hours playing catch up on the rest of the field. It’s the Formula One equivalent of a schoolboy up all night cramming for his exams, having left it until the last minute.
And the proof was in the pudding as Hamilton crossed the line in 16th and 14th across both practice sessions, while Russell got his car up to fifth.
‘We’ll work on it overnight and turn it around for tomorrow,’ Hamilton seethed. ‘But we definitely won’t be winning this weekend.’
Pushed on why Mercedes were so far off the pace, Hamilton said: ‘It’s figuring out what is wrong. We were much closer in the last race (in Singapore) but we didn’t have many high-speed corners, only one, but not as high-speed as the corners here.’
It didn’t get much better in qualifying, either. On paper, Mercedes have the perfect duo to challenge Verstappen: Hamilton is, statistically speaking, the greatest qualifier of all time with 104 poles, while Russell was not dubbed ‘Mr Saturday’ during his stint at Williams for nothing.
Hamilton said Mercedes ‘didn’t have a chance’ of winning in Japan despite coming out in Singapore
The seven-time world champion’s podium finish in Singapore offered hope that better was to come for Mercedes
It was always going to be difficult to emulate that success in Suzuka, where the long, fast corners benefit Red Bull and McLaren
But the pair couldn’t lay a glove on the imperious Verstappen and were out of punching range of the two McLarens. Russell was over seven-tenths behind Australian rookie Oscar Piastri while Hamilton, resembling the third member of Daft Punk in his new-look chrome helmet, was close to half a second behind the front row.
Ultimately, Mercedes’ desperate attempt to salvage a strong result may be a case of too little, too late. On a weekend where Red Bull wrapped up the constructors’ championship, this, from Hamilton, perfectly encapsulates why the Brackley bunch are behind their rivals.
‘We typically have at least one suboptimal day each weekend, so Friday was like that,’ he said.
In a sport where the margins could not be finer, Mercedes must transform those self-inflicted blows into knockout punches. Japan has taught them a painful lesson.
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