Wolff defends Hamilton after penalty: 'Could happen to anyone'

After a poor showing in sprint qualifying a day before, Mercedes one again left the sprint race with a sour taste in their mouth. Lewis Hamilton was able to get into the points, but because of a drive-through turned into a 20-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, Yuki Tsunoda was able to get the final point today. Team principal Toto Wolff talked to Sky Sports about his team after the sprint in Miami.

Wolff didn't have high hopes for the sprint because of the DRS trains that were formed. "I don't think you can expect a lot in a sprint race. Not lots of overtaking. You can see a quick car on the straight like Ricciardo able to pull back the train and then so far you basically end up where you start," he told Sky Sports.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finished the race in P12 and P16 respectively, as even though Hamilton crossed the finish line in eighth place, he received a penalty. Wolff defended his driver: "I think the penalty for the pit lane speeding these things you know can happen and these errors and in that respect I think the pace of the car was not so bad today. It's a little bit limited amount of the way we're able to see there. Setup-wise it's clear that we need to change direction for qualifying."

Qualifying depends on the tyres

In Friday's sprint qualifying, Mercedes struggled with the Pirelli tyres. The Austrian believes that will be the deciding factor in qualifying. "Yes, we weren't working the mediums at all. Literally zero grip and then you get all the snaps and you have no performance anymore but it's huge. We've seen it with other teams in the Q3 with the McLarens that really was confident certainly, it was going backwards so they remain a little bit of a trick but it's the same for everyone."