F1 News: Toto Wolff admits Mercedes made 'weird' mistakes in Bahrain disasterclass

Thumbnail video about Wolff on Verstappen — Photo: © IMAGO

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Wolff admits Mercedes made 'weird' mistakes in Bahrain disasterclass

The Dutchman cruised to victory in Bahrain as Mercedes struggled to keep up

Tyler Rowlinson

Tuesday 5 March 2024 19:57

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff described Max Verstappen as ‘in a different galaxy’ as he cruised to victory in the first race of the 2024 season in Bahrain.

The Dutchman picked up where he left off in 2023 and finished 22 seconds ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez for his 55th career win

Meanwhile, Mercedes’ Goerge Russell and Lewis Hamilton could only manage fifth and seventh respectively as the team struggled with power unit issues.

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Russell had been running second in the early stages after passing Charles Leclerc, but the Brit suffered from an overheating engine and a problem with the battery that saw him fall back, with an error on lap 46 costing him fourth.

Max Verstappen continued where he left off in 2023 with victory in Bahrain

Mercedes struggled with power unit problems throughout the race

Lewis Hamilton finished in seventh with team-mate George Russell in fifth

Wolff: Verstappen was on a different galaxy

Hamilton faired no better in what was a disappointing weekend after qualifying ninth on Friday, and Wolff was quick to address the mistakes made by the team over the weekend.

Speaking with Karun Chandhok after the race, the Austrian was in awe over Verstappen’s performance but was also left confused by the W15’s lack of pace on the harder compound tyre.

“Yeah, far off,” he said. “I mean Max was in a different galaxy.

“We need to look at ourselves why we lost so much performance on the harder tyre. We got the cooling level wrong and therefore you need to lift and coast. Performance of the tyres, it was a bit of a vicious circle.”

When asked about how the team did not have the pace to catch Ferrari towards the end of the race, he added: “Yeah, it was odd. As the race unfolded we had to lift and coast more to manage the tyres.

“The temperatures on the power unit, we closed it up too much, that was the main issue and then we didn’t have the pace weirdly.

“It’s weird, because we had some pace in the car and on the hard tyre today we didn’t. I think just many mistakes that we’ve done, but in the end we are learning. “We have a brand new car and we’ve seen the glimpses of performance but couldn’t materialise any of that today, so I’m really keen to look at the data and see what we can do in Saudi [Arabia].”

Max Verstappen Mercedes George Russell Sergio Perez Toto Wolff