Hamilton, Wolff admit Mercedes strategy fail in Sochi

Both Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff conceded that Mercedes had the wrong strategy at the Russian Grand Prix, despite getting the better of Ferrari to secure a one-two finish.

Hamilton had produced a superb lap to snatch a spot alongside Charles Leclerc on the front row, but Ferrari immediately shut them out as Leclerc towed Sebastian Vettel into the lead from P3.

However, Ferrari's race was played out to the backdrop of a team orders controversy and the team looking to manufacture a swap of positions after Vettel had refused to cede P1 to Leclerc.

And things fell apart for the Scuderia when Vettel suffered an MGU-K failure immediately after pitting, which triggered a VSC period to give Hamilton the chance to pit and remain ahead of Leclerc, who finished third behind the Silver Arrows.

"Before the race we sat down and said our estimations, if the soft tyre will last or not, either we will be correct or they will be correct," Hamilton said of Mercedes' decision to start on mediums and look to run longer than Ferrari.

"I think ultimately they were right because the soft tyre was much stronger than we anticipated.

"Obviously there was that difference between the compounds so keeping up with the softs with their consistency and speed was so hard so I wasn't expecting that."

Despite trying the offset strategy, Wolff admitted Mercedes had expected to fall short.

"I think we would have gone onto the soft for the last 25 laps and been on a soft against the medium," he said.

"Realistically, you must say, I don't think it would have been enough. We would have followed them in the gearbox like in the last few races, but not enough.

"We need to be self-aware that on pure speed we didn't have the performance this weekend. And there's many areas which we which we need to work on in order to get our get our performance levels back."

Related

More F1 news

Latest F1 news

F1 on TV: How US fans watch the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend live and FREE

• 1 hour ago

Lewis Hamilton reposts bizarre AI video of rapping car ride with Max Verstappen and co

• 3 hours ago

Cadillac announce huge triple signing as top Red Bull star joins US F1 team

• Yesterday 21:45

Kimi Antonelli avoids F1 penalty despite surprise engine change at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

• Yesterday 20:56

F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve delivers incredible verdict on new Monaco sprint race

• Yesterday 19:55

Briatore to Ferrari? Controversial F1 legend on 'the lover everyone would love to have'

• Yesterday 18:57