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Toto Wolff says George Russell ‘exceeded expectations by far’ and notes he will have to talk to Valtteri Bottas about his performance.
At the Sakhir Grand Prix George Russell stunned the Formula 1 world with his stellar drive. Most observers agree that the young Briton missed out on his first race win mostly due to Mercedes’ pit stop mix-up and a punctured tyre.
Team boss Toto Wolff lists the challenges Russell had to overcome while driving, due to the cockpit being too tight for him.
“He was hitting his knees and had bloody knuckles,” explained Wolff to Sky Sports in Germany.
“Fifth in qualifying and the race would have been completely ok under these circumstances – but then he took the front row and almost won the race.
“He exceeded our expectations by far.”
However Mercedes and Wolff seem to not be as happy with Bottas’ performance, who in the end finished in P8. After the race Bottas’ race engineer Riccardo Musconi apologized to the Finn for the team’s pit stop mistake, but added the performance needs to be better.
“Sorry for the mix-up, but I think we need to be a lot better than this,” said Musconi.
Immediately after the race Wolff said basically the same thing: “I need to talk with [Valtteri] and his crew – but yeah, he did not shine today.”
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Wolff later expanded on what he thinks Bottas’ problem is..
“On one lap [Bottas] is very close to Lewis. On good days we know what we have in him.
“But it’s also a fact that he starts a season as strong as a bear, but then decreases when the championship is over. You can only survive against Lewis and win a championship if you are at your peak over a whole season.
“We have to discuss that with him now.”
However with Bottas already signed for 2021 and Hamilton expected to agree on a new deal soon, the Austrian says Mercedes’ line-up is not likely to change next year.
“We have a fixed driver plan for next year. George has a contract with Williams; we have a contract with Valtteri. Mercedes keeps its contracts.
“But you never know. You can only work with the information you had at that point in time and the black swan always swims past when you least expect it.
“George will be in our car sooner or later,” concluded Wolff.
