DON’T PANIC LEWIS

Toto tells him to finish the job

MERCEDES boss Toto Wolff insists that Lewis Hamilton still has the car to carry him to a fourth world title.

Hamilton was left downhearted following his second-place finish in Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Brit could not live with the pace of the race winner, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Hamilton would probably have been further down the order had Sebastian Vettel not been forced to start from the back of the grid after an engine change, the German recovering to finish fourth.

Mercedes’ lack of pace prompted Hamilton to complain of “unacceptable” problems behind the scenes at his team.

Ahead

But while Wolff admitted Merc’s technical wizards have struggled to produce a car which is consistently fast at different types of track and in varying weather conditions, he was quick to remind Hamilton he and his team are still ahead in both title races.

Wolff said: “We must not forget we are talking about the car that leads the constructors’ championship and the drivers’ championship. It is not a lame duck.

“This car has been, on several occasions, the quickest car out there – Monza and Silverstone come to mind, where we blew everyone away.”

But Wolff was forced to concede ® that good fortune rather than raw speed had helped Hamilton stretch his championship lead over Vettel to 34 points following the races in Singapore and Malaysia.

“Full credit to Red Bull and Ferrari for their performance, but we have underperformed in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. This is what we need to concentrate on,” said Wolff.

“We have built a points advantage to Ferrari in the last two races because of them shunting out in Singapore and Sebastian’s engine problems here in qualifying.

“If they had performed as they should have, we would not have increased our points advantage but lost many points to them.

“We need to understand why we underperform on certain circuits and in certain ambient conditions.

“We have a car that has a very narrow operating window with the tyres. Dipping in and out of the window is the fundamental story of 2017 for us.”