Toto Wolff has responded to George Russell’s crash in the opening lap of the Belgian GP. The Mercedes team boss indicated that he still needed to discuss the incident with his driver, but stated that not only the circumstances around the car played a role in Russell’s difficult weekend. He also pointed to the Englishman’s driving style, who performed significantly worse than teammate Kimi Antonelli already in qualifying.
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Russell hit Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari in the first lap when he tried to overtake on the outside. Hamilton suffered from oversteer, after which the left front tire of the Ferrari made contact with the Mercedes. Russell then ended up in the gravel trap and had to retire from the race immediately. “I haven’t spoken to him yet, but I will try to put an arm around his shoulder,” Wolff said afterwards to Sky Sports.
Russell’s driving style
Although Hamilton received a five-second time penalty for causing the collision, Wolff emphasized that the incident is also part of racing. “He tried to go around the outside here, braked too late, and it should have been his corner. That such an incident then occurs is sometimes inevitable in racing.” According to Wolff, the fact that Russell did not have a competitive Mercedes may also have played a role in the situation, but he also placed part of the responsibility on his driver’s actions.
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“These kinds of things can happen whether you are at the front, in the middle, or at the back,” Wolff noted. “George (Russell, ed.) just had a difficult weekend. Probably half of that is due to the engine not being as good as it should have been, and the other half perhaps to his driving style. But we are in this together; we all make mistakes. Today the team made a mistake, next time a driver will cross the line. We’ll see how it plays out. The key is that we simply minimize the number of mistakes and continue to support each other.”
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