Wolff: Everybody responsible for performance
Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has said that his drivers need to accept accountability for Sunday's surprisingly poor Hungarian Grand Prix performance after mistakes allowed Ferrari to claim an unexpected victory.
The two silver W06 Hybrids started from the front row of the grid after dominating through the early part of the weekend, but would only finish sixth and eighth after eventful races for polesitter Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg that began with them being jumped by the Ferraris into turn one.
From there, reigning world champion Hamilton ran wide while racing his team-mate on the opening lap, dropping to tenth after a trip across the gravel at the chicane, before a clash with Daniel Ricciardo led to both a front wing change and a drive-thru' penalty en route to his worst result of a season that had yet to yield anything but a podium from nine races.
Meanwhile, Rosberg - who had also yet to finish outside the top three - appeared on course for second place despite lacking the pace to challenge either Ferrari in the early stages, only to have his own brush with Ricciardo and suffer a puncture that dropped him back down the order as he limped around for almost an entire lap with the chequered flag in sight.
Remarkably, given Mercedes dominance over the first half of the season, Rosberg is now only 21 points clear of Hungary race winner Sebastian Vettel, with Hamilton a similar amount ahead of his team-mate in top spot, giving Wolff a headache going into the summer break.
"We had so many various incidents where you now try to find out who is at fault, everybody is probably responsible for the performance we had today," the Austrian commented afterwards, concerned that both his drivers had put themselves in positions where their races could be compromised.
"Nico struggled with the option tyre at the beginning, there was no pace with car, [but] you could see Lewis' pace was very good in the midfield. I would say the only highlight today was the engine, which saved us a couple of laps before we had the incident with Nico and Ricciardo."
Wolff admitted that he was unable to shed any light on Rosberg's early-race problems, saying that the team would have to investigate ahead of next month's Belgian Grand Prix.
