Wolff at wits end: "There must be something we don't understand"

Under normal circumstances, Mercedes could have lived with fourth and fifth on the grid. However, the gap of almost two seconds to Max Verstappen felt like a 'slap in the face', as Lewis Hamilton said after qualifying. Toto Wolff is also disbelieving.

Mercedes arrived at Spa-Francorchamps full of optimism, expecting to have closed the gap to the leaders even further. However, that gap only increased and the team was even outpaced on speed by Alpine. The fact that Hamilton and George Russell gained a few places due to the many grid penalties is little consolation.

Wolff at wits end

"It doesn't matter what result we get in the race. It won't disguise the fact that others were much faster," Wolff complained to Auto, Motor und Sport. The Mercedes team boss also has no explanation for the huge gap to Verstappen and the loss of speed. "It cannot be that four weeks ago we started from pole position and now we are 1.8 seconds behind. There must be something we don't understand."

Mercedes suspect that tyre temperatures played a part in the W13's disappointing pace, but that can't be the only explanation. The pace has also deteriorated on the straight. "Our car is slow on the straights, unstable at the back, it understeers in turns eight and nine and we bounce in the fast corners," Wolff sighs. The statistics confirm this: at 333.8 and 332.5 kilometres per hour, Russell and Hamilton are twelfth and sixteenth respectively in terms of top speed.