F1 News

Wolff reacts to Dutch Grand Prix qualifying

Wolff: 'Impeding on Hamilton is pretty ugly to look at'

26 August 2023 at 17:40

Toto Wolff wasn't impressed with the amount of impeding he believes Lewis Hamilton received during qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. The stewards noted the incidents, and Wolff has given his thoughts.

Hamilton out in Q2

Hamilton failed to reach Q3, whereas his teammate will start from third on the grid. Russell made a late lunge up the leaderboard during the qualifying session which proved that there was certaintly pace in the Mercedes car. Wolff also saw this pace.

“I think Hamilton had really good pace all weekend and it's really painful to see that because of traffic, you're not making yourself go into Q3. I think also the impeding is pretty ugly to look at. I don't know whether it's become a bit of a pattern because people simply don't care or not get penalised. I mean if I see the impeding from Alonso in Q1 that's a clear impeding, and there was no further investigation. That cost him Q3," Wolff told GPblog and others.

Wolff went on to explain how he would go about fixing the impeding issue. “I think the answer is to penalise. If you know you don't go to prison when you cheat the tax, you cheat the tax. I don't understand why these things are not penalised. There was a clear impeding with some drivers in Q1 and Tsunoda didn't move from the dry line. You can say he dived on the inside and it didn't look like it cost much, but going from a dry line into a wet line and back into a dry line cost him. I think a tenth would have put him into Q3."

Hamilton will start from 13th on the grid behind Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll and Logan Sargeant.