Wolff’s bitter pill
Mercedes vows to make up for Melbourne blunder
MERCEDES have vowed to bounce back in Bahrain next month after throwing away Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix to Ferrari, with team boss Toto Wolff admitting it was tough to take.
Sebastian Vettel got the jump on world champion Lewis Hamilton as Mercedes blundered their calculations on the Ferrari ace’s pit stop under Virtual Safety Car (VSC) conditions.
Vettel went on to keep Hamilton at bay for his second straight win in Melbourne and third overall.
It is a defeat that sticks in the craw of Mercedes and team principal Wolff, who is determined the champion team will not repeat the same error again.
“It’s a bitter pill for us all to swallow,” Wolff said.
“Following Lewis’s pit stop, we believed we had the scenarios of both the safety car and the virtual safety car covered, so Sebastian could not come out ahead of Lewis.
“We should have been several seconds safe, then suddenly saw on the TV screens that we were not.
“Of course, under the VSC sometimes you benefit and sometimes you lose out -but it was clearly a problem on our side and we need to analyse that and correct it.
“Congratulations to Ferrari on their win. For us, we can come back stronger.”
Mercedes have already set their sights on the second race of the season in Bahrain on April 8.
For his part, Vettel believes Ferrari’s 2018 car is not a true match for Mercedes, despite having won the first race and conceded he was a bit lucky to win, with Ferrari was not yet where it wanted to be. – AFP