Wolff stunned after the Brazilian GP: 'This car does not deserve a win'

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toto wolff after gp brazil 2023
5 November 2023 at 19:57

Toto Wolff is all done with the 2023 Formula One season. After a dramatic Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Wolff argues that the W14 simply does not deserve a win in 2023.

It was a dramatic day for Mercedes in Brazil. The German racing stable completely sank through the ice with poor race pace. George Russell failed to finish in the end, while Lewis Hamilton got no further than eighth place. Wolff is severely disappointed with his car.

"Inexcusable performance. There's even no words for that. That car finished second last week and the week before and whatever we did to it was horrible. Lewis survived out there but George… I mean I can only feel for the two driving such a miserable thing. So it shows how difficult the car is. It's on a knife's edge. We've got to develop that better for next year because it can't be that within seven days you're finishing on the podium with probably one of the two quickest cars and then you're nowhere and finish eighth," Wolff told Sky Sports.

Wolff furious after Mercedes result

Once again things went wrong for Mercedes in a sprint race weekend, after Hamilton was already disqualified in the United States. "We are clearly not world champions on sprint race weekends. The car almost drove like on three wheels and not on four."

"This car doesn't deserve a win. I think we need to push for the last two races and recover. I think that's the most important thing and see what we can do in Las Vegas, totally different track and Abu Dhabi. But the performance today was just lacking words."

Asked if the problem will be him mainly in straight-line speed, Wolff replied: "It was just too slow in a straight line, Lewis said, even with the DRS open, it just had no straight line speed. I think straight line speed was one issue but probably not the main factor. The main factor was that we couldn't go around the corners with the bigger wing, with the pace we needed and we were killing the tyres, just eating them up within a few laps," the Austrian concluded.