Wolff: German GP “Armageddon” not embarrassing for Mercedes

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff does not view his team’s “Armageddon” German Grand Prix weekend as an embarrassment.

By Lap 29 of Sunday’s race, the German manufacturer held what looked to be a comfortable 1-2 on home soil, before its race unravelled with a multitude of incidents.

Lewis Hamilton hit the barriers while on slicks in wet conditions and was slapped with a time penalty for skipping the bollard at the pit entry as he made an unscheduled and delayed pit stop for a front-wing change, before later spinning on his way to 11th, while Valtteri Bottas crashed out from fourth place while battling to reach the podium in the closing stages.

“It was a terrible day for us,” Wolff conceded. “It was a really difficult day, everything started well at the beginning and then it was tricky to make the right call.

“I think it was borderline whether to change tyres or not. That can be justified but obviously like Charles, Lewis put the car in the wall and it is difficult to come in around the bollard so that was the penalty.

“Then we made the wrong call with the tyres. The tyres were not ready which can happen if you crash right on the entry of pit lane but nevertheless we lost a lot of time with the wrong tyre call there.

“So we need to better care there. From then on we were on the backfoot with Lewis all of the time.

“Using the word embarrassing, no it is not embarrassing, it is motor racing and sometimes you’ve got to take a slap on the chin and you learn,” Wolff added.

“These are the days which make us better. We’ve got to think about what went wrong and then if things come together, like Valtteri crashing out at the end which was not great, this ends in an Armageddon weekend for us.

“We were celebrating 125 years here, with all the board here and all the Netflix guys here, that played no role at all. It probably gave them more content than any other weekend. We’ve got to stick our heads together and learn.”

Despite enduring its worst weekend of the campaign so far in its 200th grand prix start, Hamilton was able to extend his championship lead to 41 points after post-race penalties for the Alfa Romeo pair promoted him up to ninth, while Mercedes retains its comfortable lead in the constructors’ standings.

Team members had dressed up in period clothing as part of its ‘125 years of motorsport’ celebrations, something Wolff suggested might have been a distraction for his squad.

“I do believe in karma and when you want to do particularly well things can go wrong, maybe you get distracted and maybe you are doing things differently to how you would normally do,” he explained.

“I don’t know. At the end we will learn and summarise it rationally. Right now all the wrong things, all the calls that we missed and all the things we shouldn’t have done we see and we will progress as a team.

“We have a few days to come back, regroup and comeback stronger at Budapest hopefully with a strong result. We are still leading the championship and in a good position which must not be forgotten.”