Mercedes vow to bounce back after ‘one that got away’

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’s 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.

“This was one that got away and it’s a bitter pill for us all to swallow,” Wolff said.

Next target

“Following Lewis’ pit stop, we believed that we had the scenarios of both the safety car and the virtual safety car covered, so that Sebastian could not pit and come out ahead of Lewis on track.

“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 to understand what happened and correct it.”

Mercedes have already set their sights on the second race of the season in Bahrain on April 8.