© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Toto Wolff says Lewis Hamilton and George Russell “worked together” to get the car “to a sweeter spot”, and so “results throughout the year were irrelevant”.
Much has been written in the F1 media about George Russell finishing ahead of Lewis Hamilton in his first year with Mercedes. However, sometimes these reports don’t paint the full picture.
For example, it is often not reported that in the first half of the season, Hamilton’s focus was on improving the troubled W13, and for this he sacrificed his race results.
This fact has been confirmed by numerous members of the Mercedes team, including team boss Toto Wolff, who confirmed it again during his appearance on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, when he was asked if he was impressed by Russell’s results.
“I didn’t really look at the results so much,” Wolff said.
“That’s because we didn’t really race for wins, and both drivers are calibrated to put them in a position to win and the car was simply not good enough.
“They worked together in trying to get it to a sweeter spot and that didn’t really work out.
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“I don’t think it really mattered for them at the beginning whether one finished second and the other third or the other way around. It was irrelevant.
“And in the same way, all the results throughout the year were irrelevant.”
However, Toto emphasized how important it was for George to get his first F1 race win in Brazil this year, especially because of the way that a win was cruelly snatched from him at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix.
“I’m happy for George that he won his first race and that was important after the Bahrain situation two years ago.
“But Lewis also told me about not winning a race this season as a first [and he had] absolutely no problem with that.
“It plays no role,” Wolff concluded.
