Toto Wolff concedes to "many parts" that don't work after shock Lewis Hamilton exit

Hamilton in Saudi Arabia — Photo: © LAT Images

Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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Wolff concedes to "many parts" that don't work after shock Hamilton exit

Hamilton exited qualifying in Q1 for the first time since 2017

Sam Hall

Saturday 26 March 2022 23:30

Toto Wolff has conceded Mercedes has "many parts of the car that don't work" that has left the team struggling to understand the W13 after Lewis Hamilton's shock early qualifying exit in Saudi Arabia.

For the first time since 2009, Hamilton failed to escape Q1 on pace alone, qualifying a wretched 16th in contrast to team-mate George Russell who starts sixth.

With Mercedes so far struggling to match Red Bull and Ferrari this season, Wolff's frustrations with the W13 are beginning to show.

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"Generally, this isn’t a single problem," Wolff explained. "We have many parts of the car that don’t work, that we don’t understand, that don’t perform enough and this is not where we all expect the car to be.

“You can see between Lewis’ and George’s performance there were not huge set-up changes that were made.

"But they were dramatic enough to have consequences on the performance of the car, from going out in Q1 and making it solidly into Q3."

After the Bahrain Grand Prix, Wolff commented Mercedes would 'take a chainsaw' to the W13's rear wing to reduce drag for the Saudi Arabian weekend.

Explaining the action the team had taken in the week between races, Wolff added: “That is why this car is so tricky to set up and we had a lower drag rear-wing.

"We took the gurney off but still it wasn’t enough to shave more drag off the car."

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