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Wolff: Starts need more work than strategy

13:36, 09 Jul 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

It was another disappointing weekend for Mercedes. Having started the tripleheader with a dominant win in Paul Ricard, the Silver Arrows had an unprecedented double retirement and then a huge missed opportunity at Silverstone, where the fight with Ferrari escalated to the next level.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said afterwards that it wasn't the strategy that needed work however. Despite a large amount of criticism coming the teams way relating to the strategy calls of the past few races, Wolff maintained it was in fact the start of the races that Mercedes needed to focus on more than anything going into the German Grand Prix.

“I think the first thing we need to understand is where can we improve and where can we engineer,” Wolff told Formula1.com. “We need to find some performance in the race starts to avoid incidents like we saw (at Silverstone). This is something we can change.”

“I think the strategy was pretty good. We could have saved the soft in Q2 but I don’t think it would have made a big outcome because we wouldn’t have pitted. We decided to go for the track position, it was the right call in my view, and we wouldn’t have won the race otherwise in my opinion. So fine with that.

“I think it was absolutely the right decision to do. There was 15 or 16 laps until the end with mediums that would last. Gaining track position was the interesting one for us and that triggered our decision.

“I think that both strategies are valid. But doing the opposite was the choice we went for and at the end it brought us a P2 and P4 and I think considering how the race started, we need to accept the result as an acceptable outcome with real damage limitation"

As had been the case in the past few races, it was a lesson in damage limitation for the team. Lewis Hamilton spun on the first lap by Kimi Raikkonen meant Mercedes opted to go the opposite way to their rivals in the closing stages of the race after the late safety car gave them an alternative strategy.

“The first thing is that both drivers had the same call to do the opposite (to Ferrari). We would have done the opposite because as I said before I think both strategies had a realistic chance, it was a fifty-fifty I guess.

“We want to be aggressive. Obviously some others are more aggressive but it’s about racing fair and square and having the best car. This is what is in our hands and try to improve where we can improve.”