The Mercedes pit wall was surprised and shocked to see Sebastian Vettel re-join the racetrack ahead of Lewis Hamilton after his only pit stop during the Australian Grand Prix.
Vettel took advantage of a Virtual Safety Car caused by Romain Grosjean’s stricken Haas, and there was no way back from Hamilton as he had to settle for second place, behind title rival Vettel.
Mercedes have since blamed “an offline tool” that is used to calculate lap times.
Hamilton and the team felt they were comfortably ahead but were confused and disappointed after an error in the lap times calculated allowed Vettel to take the early advantage in the Drivers’ Championship.
Wolff said: “It hurt to leave all those points on the table, especially because we know we had the pace to win in Australia.
“Back at base, we did what we always do after a tough weekend.
“We made sure that we understand what went wrong and put a process in place to make sure we don’t see a similar issue in the future.
“These painful moments are the real learning experiences.
“Mistakes become training.”