Mercedes got strategy ‘terribly wrong’ in ‘catastrophic’ F1 British GP

Toto Wolff has admitted Mercedes got their strategy “terribly wrong” in what he labelled as being a “catastrophic” British Grand Prix.

George Russell’s decision to give up fourth on the grid to switch onto slicks on the formation lap massively backfired and set both drivers on an incorrect trajectory.

Russell could only score a single point in 10th after switching onto slicks once again late in the race when conditions were too wet, which led to a high-speed spin.

“We are all in this together but the first call, or the first decision from within the car and the pitwall, was terribly wrong,” Mercedes team principal Wolff explained.

“That kind of made us spiral from bad to worse, because that triggered the stop for Kimi. When you see where Kimi was running, we should have simply kept him out with a split strategy and we probably would have beaten [Nico] Hulkenberg. That’s not to diminish Nico’s driving which from far away looked very good.

“Then we had the wrong tyre on the car because we believed the medium wouldn’t last with us because Friday was so bad, another wrong decision. Then obviously the second stop was probably even more wrong than the first one. That was basically the guillotine that fell.”

Wolff added: “I wouldn’t say it was a snowball effect, it was more like one action, driver-to-pit wall action, triggered a situation that was already bad. The second decision with Kimi was wrong, the third decision was wrong. The driver to pit wall communication was just very bad today.

“All of us together had a robust chat up there and everybody acknowledges that the first decision was actually the catastrophic one.”

Asked whether Mercedes need to rethink some of their bold strategy calls and play it safer in future, Wolff replied: “I think we’ve taken some bold decisions in the past, which won us races. Overall if I would put a number on it, I would say maybe six or seven out of 10  decisions that were bold, they worked out.

“Today’s decisions were not bold. Today’s decisions were just total misjudgment of the situation. Certainly there wasn’t anything to look good on. It was all bad.”

Mercedes explain Kimi Antonelli retirement

For Kimi Antonelli, things were even worse. The F1 rookie was forced to retire with damage after being hit from behind by Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar.

“You can’t see at all. One hit the other because he can’t see him, so that can happen,” Wolff said of the incident. “Kimi is upset about how his race went, which is mainly on the team.”

Wolff went on to reveal the extent of the damage Antonelli had suffered to his car.

“There was not a lot [of the diffuser remaining]. We were 40 points [of downforce] down, which is massive and why we decided to retire,” he explained.