Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff believes Max Verstappen’s romp to Hungarian Grand Prix victory was akin to a Formula 2 field going up against an F1 car.
Verstappen delivered a crushing performance at the Hungaroring to score a seventh successive victory, his ninth in 11 races this year, and the 44th of his F1 career, finishing 33.7secs ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris.
The latest dominant success also netted a new F1 record for Red Bull as it has now won 12 successive races, beating the 35-year-old mark posted by McLaren when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost drove for the team in 1988.
Once Verstappen managed to overtake Lewis Hamilton on the inside through Turn 1 at the start, the race was run.
Hamilton dropped back to fourth at the chequered flag, two places ahead of team-mate George Russell who elevated himself up from 18th on the grid.
“I think we had the second quickest car today but the result doesn’t show it, and that’s overall disappointing,” said Wolff, speaking post-race to the media, including Speedcafe.
“We’ve got to find out how we could have done better. You can see George came back from a long way down, beating the Aston Martins, beating the Ferraris, so we just need to analyse it.
“We were too careful in bringing them in, and I think after the stops, we lost a lot of time. It paid off towards the end of the stint because we were miles quicker than everybody else.
“But it’s always a balance, and I believe the balance was a little bit too much in terms of bringing them in.
“Obviously, we can talk it up and say we could have been, would have been second. In a way, that’s irrelevant because you have a car in front that was 38 seconds (nearly 34) ahead, and was probably cruising a lot of the time.
“That’s the bitter reality but as I’ve said before it’s a meritocracy. As long as you’re moving within the regulations, then overall Red Bull has just done a better job, and we just need to acknowledge that.”
The Mercedes W14s certainly came alive in the final stint, allowing Russell to power his way forward after emerging in 13th after his second stop, whilst Hamilton came within 1.5s of beating Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to the podium after significantly bridging the gap late on.
The bottom line, however, is that Hamilton finished 39 seconds behind Verstappen, comparatively a 0.5s gap per lap over the 70-lap race.
Judging his team’s car against Red Bull, Wolff added: “Surprising as it sounds, in terms of pace, you see it (the W14) was quick.
“(It was) Quick in terms of the rest of the world. In the F2 gang, it was quick. The F1 car won by 38 seconds.
“We need to calculate it and say, ‘What can we do better in the next race, and optimise from there.”
Reiterating his point in an additional interview with Sky Sports F1, Wolff remarked: “We are going to fight back and win races and championships, but we saw the pace Max had. That’s where they are.
“It was like a bunch of Formula 2 cars against a Formula 1 (car). They have done the best job.”
Discussion about this post