Lewis Hamilton “deserves better” from Mercedes - Toto Wolff

Wolff, Mercedes, Australia — Photo: © LAT Images

Emilia Romagna Grand Prix

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Hamilton “deserves better” from Mercedes - Wolff

Former champion finished 14th in Imola after being lapped by Verstappen

Will Gray & Sam Hall

Tuesday 26 April 2022 09:30

Toto Wolff declared Mercedes must pull together to give Lewis Hamilton a car that he deserves after the former world champion was lapped by Max Verstappen at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The Mercedes team principal personally apologised to Hamilton for the performance of the W13, which struggled with porpoising on the straight and lacked the straight-line speed to allow Hamilton to climb up through the field from 14th.

Although Hamilton progressed one position by the chequered flag, this was due to a five-second penalty suffered by Esteban Ocon after the Frenchman made contact with Hamilton in the pit lane.

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Wolff conceded: “The car was undrivable in the way it was undrivable before. You see the straight, the bouncing on the main straight. I wonder how the two of them can even keep the car on the track at times.

“Lewis deserves better from us, but we are a team so we all need to do the utmost in order to provide him with a machine that is able to fight for front positions.”

Wolff - Hamilton simply got stuck

Hamilton’s team-mate George Russell managed to make the most of a difficult weekend, getting off the line well from 11th on the grid and climbing up to finish fourth behind the two Red Bulls and the McLaren of Lando Norris.

Meanwhile, Hamilton suffered the embarrassment of being shown a blue flag to allow past his former rival Verstappen after finding himself stuck in a DRS train behind Pierre Gasly.

“If you see when there is a DRS train, none of them could overtake," explained Wolff. "You are boxed in in a train of cars, it’s just almost impossible to overtake.

“Lewis had much more pace than Albon or Gasly or any of the other cars in front of him but there is one DRS straight and if you haven’t got the straight-line speed you cannot pass. Lewis was just stuck there in the back.

“Both drivers are doing the utmost and out-performing the car at the moment and we have seen that reaping the results for George, who did an outstanding race, a perfect start and handled a car that wasn’t tuned optimally.”